The New World suburban phenomenon can be contemplated from two other
perspectives:first, in terms of it being a settlement innovation taken up for that
particular small grouping of the global population which comprises these par-
ticular settler societies; second, in terms of it being inherently a product of the
twentieth century, in other words a relatively new, clean-cut, quick-fix option and
solution. The suburban style of road building, plot provisioning, and separated-
use zonings associated with higher levels of car ownership and expanding rates
of car usage arose, according to Hawken, Lovins and Lovins (1999) because
‘Current zoning typically mandates land use patterns that maximise distance and
dispersion, forbid proximity and density, segregate uses and income levels, and
require universal car traffic’. Kenneth Jackson’s Crabgrass Frontier(1985) identifies
four ‘distinguishing characteristics’ of the settler society suburban experience:
- A strong penchant for home ownership.
- A widening disparity between residents of central cities...and those of their
surrounding suburbs. - The (considerable) length of the average journey-to-work, whether measured
in miles or in minutes (and) - The absence of sharp divisions between town and country.
Along the coded-in shopping strips en routeto suburbia and ex-urbia lies com-
mercial space, the ‘big box’ stores and cinema multiplexes and car saleyards sur-
rounded by copious parking, which, at prime locations, has morphed into malls
which now offer shopping as family entertainment. These compete against tradi-
tional urban centre trade and commerce by providing what downtown used to
offer, out where the spending populations now live. What is forsaken is city centre
liveliness, particularly for the first generation of malls because virtually nobody
lives there. What malls do offer is tough competition to the crime-threatening and
often dingy-dirty-scary traditional downtown city centre. Coming to the newer of
these malls are clean service industries, office complexes and some residential
accommodation.
Ex-urbanization now spreads well beyond the suburban fringe,
extending as a quasi-urban penumbra to the further limits of
whatever is regarded as the commuting range. Indeed ex-
urbanization now represents the fastest-growing territorial
change to North American and Australasian landscapes. Enthusi-
asm for ex-urbanization is identifiable as a wistful prolongation
of the Arcadian ideal and an opportunity, for some, to remove
themselves from urban crime, congestion, racial tension and pol-
lution. The broad-acre (lifestyle) preference can be readily identified as also arising
from affluence (unrestrained use of the automobile), good blacktop roading and
lower vehicle operating costs (efficient vehicles and modest petrol tax) and for two
diverse socio-economic groupings. The firstincludes those wealthy and informed
persons setting out to live a technologically buttressed lifestyle of mock rusticity
on some broad acres, with all mod cons close to hand. The secondset includes
Urban Growth Management 193Joel Garreau,Edge City,
1992: The maximum
desirable commute is
expressed as forty-five
minutes – notably not as
a maximum distance or a
limiting cost!