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Do the suburbs exist? Discovering complexity and specificity in suburban built form

Vaughan, L; Griffiths, S; Haklay, M; Jones, CE; (2009) Do the suburbs exist? Discovering complexity and specificity in suburban built form. T I BRIT GEOGR , 34 (4) 475 - 488. 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2009.00358.x. Green open access

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Abstract

In human geography cities are routinely acknowledged as complex and dynamic built environments. This description is rarely extended to the suburbs, which are generally regarded as epiphenomena of the urbs and therefore of little intrinsic theoretical interest in themselves. This article presents a detailed critique of this widely held assumption by showing how the idea of 'the suburban' as an essentially non-problematic domain has been perpetuated from a range of contrasting disciplinary perspectives, including those that directly address suburban subject matter. The result has been that attempts to articulate the complex social possibilities of suburban space are easily caught between theories of urbanisation that are insensitive to suburban specificity and competing representations of the suburb that rarely move beyond the culturally specific to consider their generic significance. This article proposes that the development of a distinctively suburban theory would help to undermine one-dimensional approaches to the built environment by focusing on the relationship between social organisation and the dynamics of emergent built form.

Type: Article
Title: Do the suburbs exist? Discovering complexity and specificity in suburban built form
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2009.00358.x
Keywords: England, suburban theory, built environment, emergent, temporal, spatial, EXPERIENCES, SPACE
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Architecture
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/16144
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