Crabgrass
Frontier by Kenneth T. Jackson and Redesigning
the American Dream by Dolores Hayden.
These two books, both published in
the mid-1980s, provide two very different takes on the problem
of suburbanization in the United States. Nevertheless the
overlap between the two is great, most likely attributed
to the breadth of research of each (particularly Jackson's
more overarching historical study) and a critical-historical
approach (here, stronger in the case of Hayden's book) rooted
in the realization at the time that the trend of suburbanization
needed re-evaluation.
Jackson's history of U.S. suburbanization
is broad yet thorough, starting in the 19th century and
continuing to the then-present day. (Needless to say, the
book's themes could be applied to the last thirty years,
though this does not negate the appreciation that would
be garnered by an updated edition of the book.) Even though
Jackson uses a chronological means of presenting the history
of suburbs, the chapters deal with specific themes, like
trolleys, automobiles, and subdivisions. This thematic progression
parallels the progression that produced the suburbs,
one based on technology, expansion, and consumption.
To move from trolleys to automobiles in the book is to do
or see the same in the physical landscape.
The theme of Hayden's book is more
focused than Jackson's study; she approaches the American
dream, of which suburbia stands as symbol of this idea,
and its history as one that perpetuated gender roles that
predate the physical manifestation of the suburbs. Where
Jackson uses historical information to paint a picture of
progress and the unfolding creation of the suburbs, Hayden
uses much of the same material to paint one of sexual oppression
via domesticity. This rather crude description is enriched
by the author's thorough critique of suburban practices
of housing and consumption, though the book's greatest asset
is the alternative proposals for domestic spaces that not
only look at the role of women and men, but their role in
the communities in which they live.
To compare the two books directly,
a simplistic position would place Jackson on the conservative
right and Hayden on the liberal left. A more complex position
would find them inhabiting a middle ground that is critical
of suburbia's excesses and lack of sustainability without
necessarily embracing an opposite path. But where Jackson's
yearnings for community reach back to the times before lives
were isolated via automobiles and individual houses, Hayden's
gaze is on the future potential of designers to react to
problems of inequality and isolation and find suitable solutions
for everybody.
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