Teaching & Learning Guide for: Reading Landscapes: The American Suburbs
Authors: Scanlon Jennifer 
Published: June 2007

Focus Questions

Policymakers today speak about ‘sprawl,’ poorly planned or uncontrolled growth, as the biggest suburban challenge in the United States. How might this article’s historical insights about the intersectionality of race and class in suburban development and suburban life assist policymakers in analyzing the contemporary situation?

The article cites Margaret Marsh’s analysis of the American suburb as a ‘metaphor for a way of life,’ and explores the ways in which that metaphor has been used in popular culture to reinforce stereotypes and limit exploration of the suburban landscape. Might this argument be made about the metaphor of urban life, or rural life, as well as their depictions in television, film, and music?

Author Recommends

* Dolores Hayden, A Field Guide to Sprawl (Norton, 2004).

One of the most prominent scholars in this field, Hayden pairs up with photographer Jim Wark to explain in text, and document visually, the most recent form of suburban development, sprawl, and the political and economic decisions that promote and sustain it.

* Bruce D. Haynes, Red Lines, Black Spaces: The Politics of Race and Space in a Black Middle‐Class Suburb (Yale University Press, 2001).

Haynes provides the first in‐depth history of a black middle‐class suburban community in the United States. Combining archival and ethnographic research, the book explores the political, economic, and cultural history of Runyon Heights, a community in Yonkers, New York, over the course of the past century.

* Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton University Press, 2005).

Kruse’s history of desegregation and resegregation in Atlanta covers sixty years of civil rights activism, white flight, and the development of a conservative white political power base in the city and its suburbs. By focusing on the racially‐motivated acts of ordinary citizens rather than overt racists, Kruse explores the quotidian but highly influential politics of race in American urban and suburban life.

* Nina C. Leibman, Living Room Lectures: The Fifties Family in Film and Television (University of Texas Press, 1995).

Television shows of the 1950s arguably model the homogeneous – and happy –white middle‐class family. Films of the same decade, however, including Rebel Without a Cause and Splendor in the Grass, reveal serious family and social conflicts. Leibman’s work brings together film and television to demonstrate that both media share not only an obsession with the American family but also anxieties about its place in postwar life.

Online Materials:

1. Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown.html

2. Levittown, PA: Building the Suburban Dream

http://server1.fandm.edu/levittown/three/kitchen.html

These sites contains historical information and artifacts, including photographs, architectural drawings, and a whites‐only lease, from the Long Island, New York, and Levittown, Pennsylvania communities that became synonymous with suburban life in the minds of many Americans.

3. The Media History Project Connection Pages

http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/

Television page of more comprehensive media history project provides links to museums, archives, and other websites that explore the role of television in American life.