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Global Suburbanisms
The Life of North American Suburbs

The Life of North American Suburbs

Edited by Jan Nijman

Published by: University of Toronto Press

Series: Global Suburbanisms

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

32 figures

Digital download
9781487512460
Published: February 2020

Digital download
9781487512477
Published: February 2020

Description
Contents
Praise

This book chronicles and explains the role of suburbs in North American cities since the mid-twentieth century. Examining fifteen case studies from New York to Vancouver, Atlanta to Chicago, Montreal to Phoenix, The Life of North American Suburbs traces the insightful connection between the evolution of suburbs and the cultural dynamics of modern society. Suburbs are uniquely significant spaces: their creation and evolution reflect the shifting demographics, race relations, modes of production, cultural fabric, and class structures of society at large. The case studies investigate the place of suburbs within their wider metropolitan constellations: the crucial role they play in the cultural, economic, political, and spatial organization of the city. Together, the chapters paint a compelling portrait of North American cities and their dynamic suburban landscapes.

List of Figures, Maps, and Tables
Preface

1. Introduction: Elusive Suburbia
Jan Nijman

Part 1: Questioning North American Suburbia
2. Using Toronto to Explore Three Suburban Stereotypes, and Vice Versa
Richard Harris
3. Mexico City: Elusive Suburbs, Ubiquitous Peripheries
Liette Gilbert
4. Searching for Suburbia in Metropolitan Miami
Jan Nijman and Tom Clery
5. Spatial Transformations in the Suburbs of the North Carolina Piedmont Region
Fang Wei and Paul Knox

Part 2: Changing Political Economies of Suburbanization
6. The Strange Case of the Bay Area
Richard Walker and Alex Schafran
7. Vancouverism as Suburbanism
Elliot Siemiatycki, Jamie Peck, and Elvin Wyly
8. Montreal: An Ordinary North American Metropolis?
Claire Poitras and Pierre Hamel
9. New York’s Suburbs in a Globalized Metropolitan Region
James Defilippis and Christopher Niedt

Part 3: Race, Ethnicity, and the Remaking of Suburbia
10. Diverging Racial Geographies in Phoenix’s Postwar and Post–Civil Rights Suburbs
Deirdre Pfeiffer
11. Suburbanization and the Making of Atlanta as the “Black Mecca”
Katherine Hankins and Steve Holloway
12. Edmonton, Mill Woods, Amiskwaciy Waskahikan
Rob Shields, Dianne Gillespie, and Kieran Moran
13. Economic Development and the New Immigrant Segregationist Politics in Suburban Chicago
David Wilson

Part 4: Contested Suburbs
14. Governance, Politics, and Suburbanization in Los Angeles
Roger Keil and Derek Brunelle
15. Reaching Suburbia: Towards a Socially Just Transit System for Ottawa
Caroline Andrew and Angela Franovic
16. Contested Spaces: Suburban Development in Halifax and Other Midsized Canadian Cities
Jill L. Grant
17. Epilogue: Suburbs as Transitional Spaces
Jan Nijman

Contributors
Index

"Drawing on major metropoles and smaller cities across the US and Canada, and the rather outlying case of Mexico City, the authors (primarily geographers) map varied suburban forms and beliefs from Vancouver to Miami, while looking closely at issues of race and political-economic struggles that focus on the dynamics of suburbs and central cities in the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Each essay's argument is comprehensive, compelling, and valuable for classroom us."
~G. W. McDonogh, Bryn Mawr College, CHOICE