Suburban Innovations

Abstract: This commentary addresses the evolution of the North American suburb over the last 70 years, a period over which it adopted a development pattern marking a radical break from prior forms of urban settlement. Early in this period, the emerging suburban form constituted perhaps the sharpest transition in the history of urbanism in terms of urban form and transportation. This suburban form rapidly came to dominate North American metropolitan regions and spread to other parts of the world. In this commentary, I propose a brief history of the North American suburb since the late 1940s seen through the lens of the contributions it made to the evolution of urbanism across the continent. I contend that while suburbs are often associated with urban stasis, because perceived as an impediment to the emergence of new environmentally sensitive and socially and functionally integrated urban formulas relying on public transit and walking, they have played a major transformative role in the past a

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet ; In: Urban Planning ; 2 (2017) 4 ; 1-4

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (when): 2017
• Creator: Filion, Pierre

Further information

• DOI: 10.17645/up.v2i4.1276
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2019051712410040366832
• Rights: Open Access; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 11:00 AM CEST