Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise And Fall Of Suburbia Review

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(More customer reviews)This truly enjoyable examination loses two stars for two reasons: it is a tad dated (no fault of its own) and it misses the point. Suburbia did not fall, it morphed or evolved in an unfortunate ways. Yet, it holds true to some original observations like Mumford's critique that suburbia is "a collective effort to live a private life". One of the greatest surprises in my life is to actually find myself living in "modern" suburbia and I am in violent agreement with Mumford's take on this isolating environment. I live within 500 meters of ten neighbors and know more about the last guy I sat next to on a plane than the neighbors I have resided by for over five years.
Suburban design was meant to create a harmony between nature and city. Instead it has developed into bastardized versions of tiny cities (not quaint towns). People have escaped the city core where they work and created a bizarre melange of living conditions that was never desired but is plainly a new form of city. This new environment was to renew the focus on family but actually segregated that unit in more ways than ever could have been imagined.
The North American suburb is a cookie cutter of Monopoly game houses, aesthetically revolting strip malls, failed attempts at rekindling post-war community involvement, and broad voids of culture. These suburbs are quite different from the ones John Cheever captured in his fiction following the Second World War. They are a horribly false construct driven by conformity, false economic advantage, and expectations of material possessions that depress rather than reward their owners. Cheever may have been ahead of his time when he wrote that the only thing shared in suburbia was the consumption of alcohol.

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