Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Contributors attempt to remove stereotypes-- plenty are called out-- and to legitimate suburbs as a field of study. The topics covered here might fall into several fields ranging from sociology to urban planning, remain peripheral to them, or provoke further investigation."—CHOICE
"The book succeeds in demolishing the single sterile stereotype of suburbia."—Planning Magazine
"Demonstrating suburbia’s mobility as both metaphor and materiality, the collection’s diverse accounts of communities, families, and their dwellings evidence how the borders between the cul-de-sac and beyond remain malleable. Take together, the collection answers “yes” to the question, “Do these places matter?” and reaffirms the call for scholars to further study the complexity of suburbia."—Historical Geography
"I greatly enjoyed reading Making Suburbia and highly recommend it for academic study as well as personal interest."—Journal of Planning Education and Research
Table of ContentsContents
Introduction: Making, Performing, Living Suburbia
John Archer, Paul J. P. Sandul, and Katherine Solomonson
Part I. Mobilizing
1. The Social Fallout of Racial Politics: Civic Engagement in Suburban Pasadena, 1950–2000
Becky Nicolaides
2. Race, Planning, and Activism on Philadelphia’s Main Line
Trecia Pottinger
3. Defending “Women Who Stand by the Sink”: Suburban Homemakers and Anti-ERA Activism in New York State
Stacie Taranto
4. Gay Organizing in the “Desert of Suburbia” of Metropolitan Detroit
Tim Retzloff
5. Ecological Preservation in Suburban Atlanta
Christopher Sellers
Part II. Representing
6. Metaburbia: The Evolving Suburb in Contemporary Fiction
Martin Dines
7. Suburban Memory Works: Historical Representation and Meaning in Orangevale, California
Paul J. P. Sandul
8. Does This Place Really Matter? The Preservation Debate in Denver’s Postwar Suburbs
Heather Bailey
9. Yards and Everyday Life in Minneapolis
Ursula Lang
10. Suburban Rhetorics: Planning and Design for American Shopping, 1930–1960
David Smiley
11. This Old House of the Future: Remixing Progress and Nostalgia in Suburban Domestic Design
Holley Wlodarczyk
Part III. Gathering
12. Everyday Racialization: Contesting Space and Identity in Suburban St. Louis
Jodi Rios
13. The Vibrant Life of Asian Malls in Silicon Valley
Willow Lung-Amam
14. Spaces for Youth in Suburban Protestant Churches
Gretchen Buggeln
15. Sanctifying the SUV: Megachurches, the Prosperity Gospel, and the Suburban Christian
Charity R. Carney
Part IV. Building
16. The Fabric of Spying: Double Agents and the Suburban Cold War
Andrew Friedman
17. Selling Suburbia: Marshall Erdman’s Marketing Strategies for Prefabricated Buildings in the Postwar United States
Anna Vemer Andrzejewski
18. A Tiny Orchestra in the Living Room: Hi-Fidelity Sound, Stereo Systems, and the Postwar House
Dianne Harris
19. Suburban Noise: Getting Inside Garage Rock
Steve Waksman
20. The Complex: Social Difference and the Suburban Apartment in Postwar America
Matthew Gordon Lasner
21. The Outdoor Kitchen and Twenty-first Century Domesticity
Beverly K. Grindstaff
Afterword
Margaret Crawford
Contributors
Index
