ABSTRACT

Suburbs and suburbanization have long been a major concern of planning history. Planning emerged during a period of explosive urban-industrial growth during the second half of the 19th century, and the management of that growth through town extension plans and the regulation of greenfield land development was from the start a core goal of planning advocates (e.g. Unwin 1918; Sutcliffe 1981). A major theme of planning history has therefore been the study of the emergence of planning approaches to the creation of better suburbs, their successes and failures, the regulatory and governance machinery established, and its sometimes sabotage by political processes and vested interests. In this story, the planning histories of the UK and particularly the US played leading roles. Suburbs came to be seen as a characteristically American phenomenon, and the American suburb became the standard against which others were judged. Suggesting that this US-centric approach to the planning history of suburbanization has major shortcomings, this chapter sets out a conceptual framework for a more inclusive and comparative suburban planning history.