A Pictorial History of Suburbia

Hello friends! Sorry for all the delays this week- exams were brutal and so was the stomach flu. Now that I am feeling better, I want to present the last Sunday post of the year - the remaining weeks will be devoted to the McMansionHell 2016 cluster-you-know-what retrospective, which should be very exciting. By the New Year, McMansion Hell will have a new logo, and a fresh dossier of topics, so stay tuned!

On to business!

Introduction

We are all familiar with exurbia - the sleeper cities in which our beloved McMansions loom over the non-existent sidewalks. However, this way of living is very recent in the grand scheme of history, even in America whose history is very short.

Dallas, TX and Suburbs by Andreas Praefcke (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

The suburb is as old as the English language itself - the word dates back to Chaucer - but the exurb, and other contemporary ways of ordering our lives is very recent, its origins begin around 1945. By 1970, the exurb had reached its final from: the SLUG (Spread-out, Low-density, Unguided Growth.)

But to know the present, we must first, of course, understand the past.

A Visual History of Neighborhood Shapes (1750-1940)

Before there were suburban areas, there were, of course, urban areas. Until around the 1850s, most people in America either lived in the urban cores of cities or in rural towns. The rural towns remained pretty much unchanged until around 1940 when many of them were absorbed into the sprawling cities.

The Early Urban Core (1750-1850)

From around 1750-1850, the urban core was pretty simple. A city would usually form around some sort of natural resource, usually a body of water, and was usually planned in a grid formation. The houses were narrow, almost always attached or semi-detached, and had no front yard. (1)





Chicago in 1836. (Open in new tab for full res)

The Urban Expansion (c.1830-1900)

In the 1850s, the cities began to expand, thanks to help of inventions like the horse-drawn streetcar, ferries, and cable cars. These expansions adopted the attached house format of the inner city, but detached housing also existed, especially in the Midwest. (2)



Allentown, PA in 1855

The Railroad Suburbs (1850-1930)

In the 1860s, the first true suburbs were born, thanks to the steam railroad. These neighborhoods were a bit more sprawled out: detached houses became the norm, along with small front yards and detached garages. Houses tended to congregate around rail stops, with the fanciest houses being the closest to the railroad.

Louisville, KY in 1873. Note railway suburbs in the top left corner.

The Streetcar Suburbs (1890-1930)

The invention of the electric streetcar in 1887 furthered a linear sprawl outside of the city. The houses remained more detached, with paved sidewalks. The goal again was to be closest to the streetcar lines.(3) Many of these neighborhoods featured mail order houses from Sears Roebuck, Aladdin, or Montgomery Wards. Streetcar suburbs would remain popular until the 1930s.

Philadelphia, PA in 1898.

Copy of a page from a 1912 Sears Roebuck Mail-order house catalog

Early Automobile Suburbs (1915-1940)

Los Angeles, CA in 1917

The 1910 Ford Model T brought motoring, previously a pastime of the wealthy, into the homes of the average Americans. By 1929, four out of five families owned a car, and by 1920 new developments were designed to accommodate these new motorists.



These developments, which no longer relied on walkability, were sprawled out with often curvilinear streets. Sidewalks were beginning to be omitted, and access to public transit was a non-issue.(4)

Early Auto Suburb, via Library of Congress.

By this point, houses were detached with wide lots spanning 40 feet+ across, front yard setbacks, and a front driveway. These suburbs were not transit-hostile, but they often joined up with main city streets causing enormous amounts of traffic, leading to issues further on. However, the Great Depression put a hold on this type of development, and the housing market in general was crippled until the start of WWII.

True Suburbia, 1940-1980

The Post-WWII suburbs began in 1934 Federal Housing Administration, which implemented strict subdivision and planning rules. However, the effects of these rules didn’t really materialize until the 1940s, since the 1930s housing market was so incredibly sluggish - something not helped by the fact that nonessential construction was prohibited during the war to conserve resources.

Over these years a massive demand for housing was being built up, and the demand for new homes was insatiable. The new FHA guidelines mandated that new housing developments be free of direct through-traffic, which completely changed the way neighborhoods were designed.

Levittown, PA

Most of these neighborhoods were built beyond the edge of the city, where many towns were planning on building a federally-subsidized highway, with a system of attached arterials (high volume streets). The system of streets were designed so none could be used as a shortcut to other areas as a web of curvy loops and cul-de-sacs.

Ohio Turnpike, 1950s. National Archives.

The houses in these developments were placed on wide lots spanning 100 feet or more, with long blocks (often omitting sidewalks), front driveways, and attached garages. Mass building techniques from the war period (such as prefabrication) made the rapid construction of nearly-identical homes easy and extremely cheap.



1950 Gunnison Homes Catalog by Jennifer Sale (CC-BY-NC-2.0)

This pattern of development was the norm until the era of exurbia, around the 1980s, the era of the SLUG.

What Was Before: Rural Towns Before Exurbia



I’m going to take a minute here to focus on the rural developments that were a mainstay of American life until the adoption of the car.



McKinney, TX in 1876.

These places often centered around a singular industry, most often agriculture and related processes. These developments were often passed through by trains by the middle of the 19th century, however they rarely ever developed past this point and were late to adopt the car.

Rural towns often have one or two Main Streets, with a mixture of different house and lot types, sizes, and uses - something that was permissible before zoning laws were in place.



Lynn, MA in 1820.

These areas are walkable out of necessity, with shops located in the center of town. The idyllic American ideal of low-density living, walking to the store and knowing all of your neighbors is an inherently rural phenomenon. The adoption of zoning regulations has made these types of developments almost impossible to replicate, despite their beloved, (if often bucolic) reputation.



Many of these small towns disappeared during the outward expansion of the 1950s-80s, or were abandoned as agricultural work became scarce during the Great Depression. Some, however, are still thriving, particularly those in the Midwestern US where farming is still a common career path.

Exurbia - Neighborhoods of Wasted Space

Exurbia is a low-density community built on previous farmland that requires a car trip to complete the most basic tasks, such as grocery shopping. It is a bedroom community - the working population commutes (by car) to work, and the young population goes to school.

These communities arose from the same desire to prevent through traffic, and the desire for gated communities and luxury amenities such as golf courses. The FHA’s desire to prevent adjacent non-conforming uses (aka commercial spaces or other walkable amenities) eliminated local commerce and relegated every little interaction to big box stores and the car.(5)

A Cincinnati Suburb. Public Domain.

The Federal Highway Act of 1956 that enacted the interstate system only made these types of developments more and more frequent, furthered by more and more highway spending over the years.



As for the types of homes in these subdivisions? Well…

…it’s McMansion Hell.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of suburban history, supplemented by drawings by me (based on observations from the books in the works cited section below.) Stay tuned for a Thursday DOUBLE FEATURE, and next Sunday’s McMansion Hell Retrospective!

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All photos in this post are Public Domain unless otherwise noted.