SUBURBANIZATION

Suburbanization became a significant dynamic in urban development during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as professional people and better-paid artisans followed the example of successful entrepreneurs in taking up residence in new homes on the outskirts of the growing factory towns and commercial centers. This process was aided by the emergence of inexpensive forms of mass transit that loosened the ties between home and workplace for those with secure jobs and relatively "social" hours of work. With the growth of private car usage beginning in the 1920s, the process surged ahead; by the second half of the twentieth century, suburban living had become the modal pattern in many countries including the United States (see Table 1).

Over time, however, the nature of suburbanization has changed considerably. The most significant change has been in terms of the geographical scale of the process. Once experienced chiefly in the form of the lateral extension of the urban core, suburbanization has come to involve residential decentralization over a much broader commuting field. As in the case of Great Britain (see Table 2), the main commuting "ring" was already the zone of most rapid population growth by the 1950s, but the growth of outer areas accelerated in the 1960s and overtook that of the rings in the 1970s. Also very notable in the British case is the population turnaround of the rural areas since the 1950s, with a growth rate exceeding that of the suburban rings in the 1980s.

This more extensive outward movement of population has been interpreted by many commentators as a distinctive phenomenon going beyond suburbanization. To the extent that it has involved the

TABLE 2

growth of relatively self-contained, medium-sized and smaller settlements lying beyond the main commuting reach of the major metropolitan centers, it has been seen as a process of "urban deconcentration" rather than of "urban decentralization." Given that this is not simply overspill from a too-full urban core but is commonly associated with absolute population loss from the latter, urban deconcentration has been interpreted as evidence of the loss of appeal of urban life and of the quest for a rural idyll, hence dubbed "counterurbanization" by Brian Berry (1976). Though most of those involved in this centrifugal movement are destined for small towns rather than the deep countryside, and very few are seeking out an alternative lifestyle without modern urban facilities, the majority see themselves as escaping the hectic pace of metropolitan life, with most sooner or later switching to nearby jobs rather than commuting back to the city.

This notion of an escape from metropolitan life in general is supported by a second major change that has affected the suburbs in recent decades: the urbanization of the suburbs or, in the words of David Birch, a transformation "from suburb to urban place" (1975, p. 25). Traditionally, the term suburb carries connotations of being something less than urbs, the city. Suburban areas were once largely residential in character, acting as dormitories and being dependent on the city center for work, recreation, and all but the most basic of shopping needs. Notably since the 1950s, however, outward residential movement has been followed by the decentralization of industrial, commercial, and high-level retail activities, and more recently by the growth of office and high-tech sectors, the latter being seen as the "third wave" of suburbanization in the United States. While commentators seem reluctant to abandon the epithet "suburban"–using terms like "the new suburbanization" with its "suburban downtowns"–it would seem that the once-clear distinction between city and suburb is fading fast. Joel Garreau's (1991) "edge city" concept better captures the nature of recent changes, as these threaten to turn the traditional metropolitan area inside out–or at least replace the monocentric city with an essentially polynuclear form of urban region.

Not surprisingly, the demographic character of the suburbs is also changing. As portrayed most effectively by the Chicago School of urban sociology in the 1920s, the suburbs in the United States were the domain of the white family where the wife was engaged full-time in raising children while the bread-winner husband commuted to work in the city. Partly through the process of in situ aging, over time these areas have seen a steady increase in the proportion of older couples whose children have left home and–despite some exodus of retirees–of the elderly. Along with the decentralization of non-dormitory urban functions, these areas have also witnessed a suburban apartment boom, drawing in younger single adults and childless couples.

The ethnic complexion of the suburbs has also been changing. While in aggregate there remains a considerable contrast between city and suburb in the proportion of non-whites, the suburb is now far from being a preserve of white families. According to the 2000 U.S. census, as many as 41 percent of the United States' non-whites lived in suburbs, not far short of the 47 percent accounted for by central cities. In 1990, minorities in the United States already accounted for one in six suburban residents, following a decade when their number grew by 53 percent compared to an increase in the minority population of the city by only 25 percent. In the United Kingdom, too, the suburbanization of ethnic minorities was already well advanced by 1991, with non-whites comprising 17 percent of the residents of Outer London, compared to 26 percent for Inner London. According to William Frey (2002), this process is linked to a "new white flight" that in America is helping to push people further away from suburbia towards the metropolitan periphery and into communities that have a rural ambiance.

SUBURBANIZATION

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