Abby's review

Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States
by Kenneth T. Jackson

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/745452.Crabgrass_Frontier_The_Suburbanization_of_the_United_States?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177957533m/745452.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/745452.Crabgrass_Frontier_The_Suburbanization_of_the_United_States?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/42723.Kenneth_T_Jackson">Kenneth T. Jackson</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/951943?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>Another book in the series of seminal urbanist books I want to read instead of actually going to grad school, this book explains the economic, social, historical, racial, philosophical, etc. reasons for the propensity over its short history for American citizens to decentralize away from urban cores and what that did/does for people both remaining in cities and those who have "escaped" with their private vehicles to the suburbs.  Having been written in the 1980s, the book anticipates, but is not aware of, a lot of the changes in urbanism that have been happening in the past year.  Besides that, though, this book really was one of the first to take a comprehensive look at the movement of Americans to the suburbs and the incentives put into place by the government to do so.  So seminal is this book, that reading it feels very familiar because it has had such a profound influence in the pattern of thinking that today's urbanists have, particularly the New Urbanists.  My only problem with the book was the scattered way in which it organized its information.  While it wasn't necessary for it to recount history chronologically (it is an analysis, rather than a history book, after all), it was compiled as though it were a series of essays written at different times for different purposes and audiences, meaning that it doubled over information several times or made references to things that wouldn't be explained until later, etc.  Also, I got my copy used somewhere, so it's an early edition of the book, which meant that it had <i>tons</i> of typographical errors, which started to drive me crazy after awhile (but...that's just me).
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/64287?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Abby's review
rating:

recommended for: Anyone who's ever lived in or wants to live in a suburb (and anti-suburb sympathizers)
status: Read in April, 2008

Another book in the series of seminal urbanist books I want to read instead of actually going to grad school, this book explains the economic, social, historical, racial, philosophical, etc. reasons for the propensity over its short history for American citizens to decentralize away from urban cores and what that did/does for people both remaining in cities and those who have "escaped" with their private vehicles to the suburbs. Having been written in the 1980s, the book anticipates, but is not aware of, a lot of the changes in urbanism that have been happening in the past year. Besides that, though, this book really was one of the first to take a comprehensive look at the movement of Americans to the suburbs and the incentives put into place by the government to do so. So seminal is this book, that reading it feels very familiar because it has had such a profound influence in the pattern of thinking that today's urbanists have, particularly the New Urbanists. My only pro...more

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