Description
Book SynopsisSuburbanization is often blamed for a loss of civic engagement in contemporary America. How justified is this claim? Just what is a suburb? How do social environments shape civic life? Looking beyond stereotypes, this title answers these questions by examining how suburbs influence citizen participation in community and public affairs.
Trade Review"Much of what social scientists and other scholars have written about suburban life and politics has not been firmly grounded in empirical research... This deficiency has been partially redressed by political scientist Oliver."--Choice "Eric Oliver's book is a welcome departure from unsubstantiated claims, providing a sophisticated empirical analysis of the impact of social contexts and suburbanization on civic engagement... Democracy in Suburbia is an important contribution."--Daniel Rubenson, Political Studies "Oliver demonstrates that strong communities and large accumulations of social capital can actually undermine democracy. Class and racial divisions must be dealt with by our society... [I]t is at the local level that the most creative solutions are forged and that citizens acquire crucial civic skills and democratic values."--Todd Swanstrom, Review of Politics "A remarkable book, literally the first one ever published to present definitive evidence on the crucial issue of the impact of the suburbs on American democracy... It virtually forces the reader to step outside old debates and assumptions and examine anew the consequences of America's preference for fragmented governmental arrangements."--Dennis R. Judd, American Political Science Review
Table of ContentsList of Maps and Figures ix List of Tables xiii Acknowledgments xv Chapter One: The Rise of a Surburban Demos 1 Chapter Two: All Cries Great and Small 33 Chapter Three: Cities of Riches and Squalor 68 Chapter Four: The Civic Paradox of Racial Segreation 99 Chapter Five: A Bedroom Polis 134 Chapter Six: Boomtowns and the Civic Costs of Air-Conditioning 154 Chapter Seven: Reform Governments and Their Aftermath 175 Chapter Eight: Remaking the Democratic Metropolis 187 Appendix A: The Citizen Participation / Cenus Dataset 215 Appendix B: Logistic and OLS Regression Equations for the Figures 220 Appendix C: Testing the Relationship between Civic Participation and "Self-Inertest Rightly Understood" 236 References 241 Index 255
