Re:Did highways cause suburbanization?
by silentbicycle on Thursday September 10, 2009 @10:16AM
(#815270)
It's more complicated than that. Suburbanization existed before highways - there were streetcar commuters, after all. Most American suburbanization has its roots in the decade after WW2, however. The economy was running on its wartime momentum, and the GI Bill gave waves of veterans college tuition, money for housing, etc. They overwhelmingly migrated to new suburbs.
(Segregated universities, among other things, meant that black veterans had a harder time using the benefits from the GI Bill. This was a major factor in the "white flight" to the suburbs.)
I was a history major, did my senior year research on suburbanization, and still barely scratched the surface. It's a big topic. If you want to talk about suburbanization in the US, though, look at the postwar era. The gradual switch to a car-based society provided the infrastructure, but the postwar economic and civil changes funded it.
(Segregated universities, among other things, meant that black veterans had a harder time using the benefits from the GI Bill. This was a major factor in the "white flight" to the suburbs.)
I was a history major, did my senior year research on suburbanization, and still barely scratched the surface. It's a big topic. If you want to talk about suburbanization in the US, though, look at the postwar era. The gradual switch to a car-based society provided the infrastructure, but the postwar economic and civil changes funded it.