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This 3-volume set examines how suburban spaces shape and reflect human experiences in North America, Europe, and Asia, bringing together works by an international group of scholars who explore suburbia through critical analyses of literature, culture, sociology, history, politics, and urban planning. The multidisciplinary and international scope of each volume offers readers a wide breadth of perspectives. Suburbia Reconsidered thus contributes significantly to the expanding field of suburban studies by offering novel insights into the representation of suburbs in literature, the cultural significance of suburban environments, and the socio-economic challenges confronting suburban communities across the globe.
Volume 3 of this 3-volume set addresses multiple dimensions of suburban social and political life, as well as planning and history. Contributors explore such themes as race and class exclusion, the relationship of eugenics to suburban planning, environmental impacts and activism in suburbia, and the influence of Cold War geopolitics on suburban planning. Some essays use history to explore implications for future suburban development, around such themes as environmental policy and multiracial suburban community building. These works use case studies to illustrate opportunities for creating more inclusive, sustainable, and culturally vibrant suburban spaces.
By integrating insights from literature, cultural studies, sociology, history, and urban planning, Suburbia Reconsidered enhances our understanding of suburban spaces and their potential for positive transformation, and encourages scholars to explore new methodologies and perspectives.
List of contents
1. Socially Excluded Localities in Suburbs: Experience from Czechia (Artur Boháč).- 2. Socially Excluded Localities in the Czech Republic (Eva Klimentová).- 3. Geographical Proximity and Social Distance at Empuriabrava (Spain): Social Grouping and Distinctions within the Francophone Community (Franck Chignier-Riboulon).- 4. Suburban Affairs: Iranian Suburbia and the Cold War Geopolitics (Hamed Khosravi).- 5. Housing in Indonesia under Program Transmigrasi and Relokasi (Ondřej Pokorný).- 6. Trucking Suburbs: Freight Transport and the Spatial Politics of Suburbia in Midcentury New Jersey (Uday Schultz).- 7. Bedroom Communities: Reproduction, Eugenics, and Suburban Development in the United States (Laura L. Lovett).- 8. Friction and Traction Affordable Housing and Homeless Advocacy in Westchester, 1983-1992 (Bradford Martin).- 9. Reimagining the Suburban Ideal Forging Multiracial Community in the Suburbs of Chicago and Los Angeles (Becky M. Nicolaides).- 10. Blowback Suburbia, Exurbia, and Reckoning with the Geography of Fire in California (Steven Boyd Saum).- 11. A Green(er) City: Environmental Activism in a Biodiversity Hotspot San Diego, California, since 1970 (Andrew Wiese).- 12. Cities: Skylines as a Tool for Traffic Analysis and Urban Planning (Jan Flajšar).- 13. Population Distribution Mapping Exploring Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis of Mobile Positioning Data (Jaroslav Burian, Vít Voženílek & Jakub Žejdlík).
About the author
Pavlína Flajšarová, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Palacký University Olomouc. A former Fulbright visiting researcher in Washington, D.C., she authored The Bridge and the Eclipse, Poetry in Great Britain and Northern Ireland after 1945, Diaspora in the Fiction of Andrea Levy, and Grace Nichols Universal and Diverse. She co-authored books on Scottish fiction and Canadian literary history. Her work centers on British ethnic and diasporic literature.
Jiří Flajšar is a Czech scholar and associate professor at Palacký University, Olomouc, specializing in American and Canadian literature, suburban literature, and contemporary poetry. His notable publications include Epiphany in American Poetry (2003), The Culture of American Suburbs (2016), and Chapters in Contemporary Canadian Literature (2014). He has also co-edited Cultural Studies Alive (2015) and published research on postwar American poetry and suburban identity.
Florian Freitag is Professor of American Literary and Media Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, specializing in (sub)urban studies, themed spaces, tourism, and queer studies. Previously assistant professor at JGU Mainz and visiting scholar at CUNY, he earned his Habilitation in 2019 and Ph.D. in 2011. His publications include Popular New Orleans and The Farm Novel in North America, as well as key works on theme parks, intermediality, and nationalism in heritage sites.
Becky Nicolaides is a historian specializing in North American suburban history, focusing on suburban diversity and politics. She earned her PhD in American history from Columbia University. Nicolaides is the author of My Blue Heaven (2002), co-editor of The Suburb Reader (2016), and author of The New Suburbia (2024). She has also consulted on historic preservation and civic memory projects in Los Angeles and is a research affiliate at the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.
Andrew Wiese is a Professor of U.S. Urban and Environmental History at San Diego State University, specializing in suburbanization, housing history, race, space, and power dynamics. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Wiese is the author of Places of Their Own (2004). He co-edited The Suburb Reader (2006, 2016) with Becky Nicolaides, a key text on American suburban history. His current research focuses on environmental politics and social justice in California, especially San Diego.
Summary
This 3-volume set examines how suburban spaces shape and reflect human experiences in North America, Europe, and Asia, bringing together works by an international group of scholars who explore suburbia through critical analyses of literature, culture, sociology, history, politics, and urban planning. The multidisciplinary and international scope of each volume offers readers a wide breadth of perspectives. Suburbia Reconsidered thus contributes significantly to the expanding field of suburban studies by offering novel insights into the representation of suburbs in literature, the cultural significance of suburban environments, and the socio-economic challenges confronting suburban communities across the globe.
Volume 3 of this 3-volume set addresses multiple dimensions of suburban social and political life, as well as planning and history. Contributors explore such themes as race and class exclusion, the relationship of eugenics to suburban planning, environmental impacts and activism in suburbia, and the influence of Cold War geopolitics on suburban planning. Some essays use history to explore implications for future suburban development, around such themes as environmental policy and multiracial suburban community building. These works use case studies to illustrate opportunities for creating more inclusive, sustainable, and culturally vibrant suburban spaces.
By integrating insights from literature, cultural studies, sociology, history, and urban planning, Suburbia Reconsidered enhances our understanding of suburban spaces and their potential for positive transformation, and encourages scholars to explore new methodologies and perspectives.
