Suburbia: an international assessment

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these cities are not really dealt with. We have the valuable essay on London’s electronics (but not much on the spatial division of labour of the industry within London); but there is nothing on other industries or sectors in other cities. There is nothing on the changing role of markets, from commodities to paper to futures, on the changing impact of transport junctions (airports, seaports, rail and road terminals), or higher education, and most surprisingly, given Professor Goddard as one of the editors, nothing on central business districts and the fiercely competitive transformations now underway. Finally, the year (1984) gives the reader a privilege over the contributors - the benefit of hindsight. The mood of pessimism then is not quite so dark now - for example, what was then scarcely conceivable - a continuously declining dollar - has led to some revival of the old American smokestack industries (most dramatically, in steel). It is not reasonable to grumble that a collection of essays is not something else, rather than examine what it is. There is much that is stimulating here and adds to our perceptions of what is happening in the urban field. But if the editors can hold another conference, there is plenty of scope for an even more exciting collection. Nigel Harris Development Planning Unit University College London, UK

D.N. ROTHBLATT and D.J. GARR, Suburbia: an International Assessment. Croom Helm, Beckenham, Kent, 1986, 318 pp. As a suburban dweller, a mother and a paid employee I am ambivalent in my attitude towards the suburbs. I condemn the lack of “urbanity”, the absence of social and cultural facilities and I am uncomfortable with the emphasis on a home-centred life. In practice of course, I find it easy to live there, convenient and safe for my small children in a pleasant, sylvan environment. High rates and mortgage interest repayments temper these delights. So I opened Rothblatt and Garr’s book with interest wondering whether their cross-national study of levels of satisfaction with suburban environments based on interviews with several hundred women living in countries as diverse as the United States, the Netherlands and Israel would reaffirm or challenge my own personal ambivalence. I was also fascinated by the authors’ choice of these three countries and anxious to determine the degree of comparability or difference between their economies and societies. In Chapter 1, the authors rapidly survey suburban growth, concentrating in the main on the industrialised world and in particular on capitalist Western societies since 1945. I found this chapter unsatisfactory in its failure to question the definition of suburbs essentially outlying residential areas adjacent to and usually dependent on the central city - and in their uncritical use of definitions of central areas, suburban rings and so on from national statistical sources. On the first point, some questioning of whether “suburbanisation” is a physical or social process might have been helpful. Does it depend on a location, on land use homogeneity (only housing), on social homogeneity (class and/or race) or on a familial, child-centred lifestyle, on some or all of these factors? This lack of clarity on a conceptual and classifactory issue made it more difficult to evaluate the dimensions of comparability in the rest of the book. In Chapter 2 the basic outlines of the three countries that form the context of the empirical survey of particular suburban areas within them is established. This chapter is a fascinating story of extreme contrasts in the material and ideological factors that were significant in the great suburban expansion that stretched roughly from 1945 to the mid1970s in the advanced capital societies. In the first section on the USA, Santa Clara county is taken as an example of free market forces leading to suburbanisation. In a subtle blend of evolutionary stage models and technological determinism (motorised transport and assembly line layouts as primary causes of suburbanisation) with an explicit

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recognition of the overwhelmingly important role of the federal government in land assembly, highway planning and mortgage finance and in the creation of federallyfunded jobs, especially in the defence industry, as well as the historical “accident” of the location of Stanford University in Palo Alto and its subsequent staggering role in industrial innovation and development in the area, a fascinating cameo of suburban growth in Santa Clara is constructed. In the second national case study, the completely different circumstances surrounding suburban growth in Palestine/Israel is described. Here in contrast to primarily material forces leading to middle income, socially and racially homogeneous suburbs in the US, enormous post-war immigration after the Law of Return was introduced, led to socially and ethically heterogeneous suburbs quite unlike their US counterparts. The expansion of the suburban ring of Tel Aviv, for example, from a population of 50,600 to 495,000 between 1948 and 1981, engulfing previous settlements in the vicinity and composed of a variety of physical forms and types of housing including high rise blocks perhaps had more in common with the expansion of metropolitan North America in the 19th- rather than 20th-century. The third country of comparison is the Netherlands, which again provides an example of the contrasting social, political and economic processes that lead to suburban expansion. Here - in a country devastated by the combined ravages of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the German occupation during the 2nd World War the post-War reconstruction of the economy was the paramount task. This involved a regional strategy, to develop the north and south-east in particular and later to address the problems of the urban metropolitan area stretching from Rotterdam, through The Hague, north to Amsterdam and then east to Utrecht - the “Ranstrad”. A growth centre strategy to develop counter magnets to the “Ranstrad” was adopted with financial and other incentives to attract industry, housing and social activities. Tight governmental control on land purchase and housing development, especially in the earlier part of the post-war period, led to a more orderly suburban development than in the US, although decentralisation and suburban growth around the Ranstrad has been important especially as controls on the private sector were relaxed over time. In addition, small municipalities expanded rapidly in the 1960s a phenomenon also found in other advanced industrial nations. The bulk of the rest of the book is a report of a detailed statistical examination of the levels of satisfaction experienced by 1,300 women and their families living in the suburbs of Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, The Hague and its environs and the San Jose region. A complex model relating four clusters of independent variables social class, subcultural, lifecycle and environmental - to four sets of dependent “satisfaction” measures - housing environment, community services, social patterns and psychological well-being - is the basis of the study. The variables were chosen on the basis of extensive perusal of the existing literature on suburban living - which incidentally is extremely well-referenced in the book - and the authors’ own empirical survey work in the areas chosen for investigation. The samples were carefully constructed to reflect the different socio-economic and ethnic composition of the areas surveyed and a range of women in different family circumstances were questioned in order to produce rank scores on an overall index of satisfaction. The findings are too complex to be summarised here but repay careful scrutiny to tease out the details of the differences between the three countries. Basically, however, the analyses show that rich well-educated households in high status occupations, living in areas with good community facilities and plenty of social contacts were most satisfied with their environment. Interestingly, the working women in the sample appeared to be more satisfied with their environment than non-working women, partly because, in the USA at least, they tended to live in multiple dwelling, condominium blocks with good support services but also because of their valued contacts beyond the immediate locality. Despite environmental factors being important, the study revealed that it is social factors that are of key significance in determining overall levels of psychological satisfaction. In particular, women’s levels of educational attainment

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influence their ability to get the most out of suburban living - a reassuring finding for professional educators. Cultural and ethnic identity is also important. The discussion of the results of the analysis and of the implications for future crossnational research raised many fascinating issues about the future residential environment in advanced societies where an increasing proportion of women are expected to enter the labour market. But overall, the book failed to bring to life the reality of living in the suburbs in these three countries. Perhaps it’s too much to ask of a report of a large scale survey but I yearned to know more about the responses of women in these areas when asked about their everyday life. There was no sense of conflict, of power relations between men and women, of the compromises that have to be made in a dual income suburban household juggling jobs, children and a social life. Nor too, was there much sense of economies in recession, of rising unemployment rates, mortgage arrears and repossessions, of radical conflict and segregation. But perhaps that’s another book. Suburbia raises many fascinating questions and in 65 tables and 26 figures as well as over two hundred pages of text begins to provide some answers. Linda McDowell

Open University Milton Keynes, UK

S. MARTIN GASKELL, Model Housing from the Great Exhibition to the Festival of Britain. Studies in History, Planning and the Environment. Alexandrine Press, Manse11 Publishing Ltd. London & New York, 1986, 180 pp.

This study of model housing from 1851 to 1951 is arranged as a series of 20 key “case studies” sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion which explore the concept and impact of the model house. It may be said at once that it contains no surprises for those conversant with what is now the conventional history of the small family house in England. Gaskell emphasises its roots in the 18th-century picturesque and in the model villages of estate owners and enlightened industrialists. The widespread idealisation of the village community - so typical of England - played a large part in this. Eventually, through the medium of self-help building societies and council housing, it became transferred to the working classes, though there was always the unresolved dilemma of how to bring it within reach of the really poor. This dilemma led to what, in England, was the aberration of tenements or flats. What Gaskell is at pains to stress is the continuity of the images and standards set in the 19th-century, and the degree to which the model dwelling reinforced society’s economic and domestic priorities. He is interested in how these were expressed in the design and technology of housing and applied to different social groups. I have some difficulty with his concept of model housing since - for all its aesthetic or utopian origins - he is for the most part describing what I should call the mainstream of English housing development, rather than an ideal prototype. The practical implications of the mass application of the model (for instance, in council housing) are not clearly expressed. In particular, there is a complete absence of reference to the work of those (Daunton, Hall and Davidoff included) who have recently traced the contributions of privacy, housework and ideals of domesticity, to the evolution of the modern home. Such reference would, presumably, have strengthened and clarified Gaskell’s thesis. The case studies’ are potentially useful, but in fact of variable value. Some of them recall significant examples not easily accessible elsewhere: e.g., the post-Second World War “prefab” and the Lansbury Estate. But there is some blurring of actual and proposed projects, and some of the schemes included are not as important as others left out (Hampstead Garden Suburb and Quarry Hill Flats are notable omissions). The brief descriptions rely on a small number of primary or secondary sources, without analysis or cross-comparison. This makes for jerky and repetitive reading which leaves a lot of work HAB 134-l