The Suburbanization of New York: Is the World's Greatest City Becoming Just Another Town?

by Jerilou Hammett (Editor), Martha Cooper (Photographer), Kingsley Hammett (Editor)

The city that never sleeps also never stops changing. And while New Yorkers are renowned for theirtrendsetting, this thought-provoking book argues that New York City itself has become a follower rather than a leader. Once-distinctive streets and neighborhoods have become awash in generic stores, apartment boxes, and garish signs and billboards. Legendary neighborhoods (Little Italy, Hell's Kitchen, Harlem, the Lower East Side) have been smoothed over with cute monikers, remade for real-estate investment and for sale to the highest bidder. What does the future hold for the legendary metropolis, gateway to immigrants and strivers, magnet for builders and dealers, muse for artists and dreamers? Will the current political, economic, and social influences dull its once-famous creative edge and culture of opposition? What will become of the special allure of New York? The Suburbanization of New York presents fourteen timely, provocative articles that explore the radical transformation unfolding in New York City and raise serious questions about the future of any metropolis struggling to maintain its unique identity. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the field of urban studies or the forces shaping our cities today.

Genres: Nonfiction, New York, Essays

185 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 2007

Reviews

[Billy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sucky, unfocused, disappointing, obvious, breezy, unserious, lacking argumentative rigor or a unifying theme beyond whiny griping. This book was not edited, it was just compiled. The premise for this is theoretically good, and the back-cover picture of the douches with golf bags on 125th Street in front of a Starbucks captures it much better than the (mostly) undisciplined and lazily reasoned essays inside. It's the kind of thing that is designed to be put on a syllabus, unfortunately, and create fodder for equally lazy seminar discussions. Stay away.

[Marty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have high expectations of Princeton Architectural Press and this failed miserably to live up to them. The Surbanization of New YOrk tried to please everyone from urban studies folks to old-time New Yorkers, to casual readers and that was the problem.

Suburbanization of New York is a number of recollections/lamentations/and stories of how NYC is changing or has changed over the past 40 years. Overall it didnt have much to unify it except this vague idea of suburbanization. Suburbanization is a meaningless catch all term, that cannot be defined. This was symptomatic of the editors choice to go light on theory.

Personally the only useful or intersting essays were the two about industrial sector losing out to real estate development and the one about Harlem by Robin D.G Kelly.

TOO MUCH NOSTALGIA, NOT ENOUGH SUBSTANCE.


To the credit of the publishers, there may be a big market for nostalgia about NYC. It just isnt what excites me.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the essays are firsthand accounts of residents watching their neighborhoods change over time, which serves to pull emotional strings but never really elevates the debate into planning logic. It's compelling and an interesting (if voyeuristic) read for people who care passionately about urban neighborhoods and are interested in their physical transformations. But it's not to be relied upon for an objective assessment of the increasing presence of capital and national brands into New York's neighborhoods; one feels as though most essays ignore (or don't understand) the role of globalization and New York's significance on the national and global stage. Still, for those involved in neighborhood organizing and interested in community-based planning, it's cathartic in a way.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't finish it. It's kind of like, okay, how many essays can you read about how NYC is Disneyfied? It is, but, I get it. I would have preferred more along the lines of "Jaunty and Decorous," which is about the privatization of public space in the city. I skipped a lot of them though when I started to get bored. You can only read so many reminisces about how awesome it was to be a squatter on the LES.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a lot of pissing and moaning going on here. It might be unbecoming at points but it’s not unwarranted. I’ve seen Manhattan — and Chicago and Cleveland and Las Vegas and pretty much every city — relinquish its character and its edge for big box stores, strip malls, blando stadiums, and suburban-like housing that sadly could be anywhere, a McDonald’s version of everyday life.

This is a collection of essays that attempt to explain what caused this shift to ultra homogenization and where it’s taking us. Published over a decade ago, it’s most interesting to see how many points raised and predictions made are spot on. Some pieces are stronger than others, but this is still worth reading — even when it requires slogging through.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting hodgepodge of essays mostly lamenting the alterations in New York’s economic, social, and cultural fabric through an emerging suburbanization of the island and - here slightly touched upon – the outer boroughs). The essays vary from the mildly analytical (Sorkin’s mapping of part of a West Village street where KFCs, Blockbusters, and porn shops commingle) to the purely nostalgic (Lucy Lippard’s reflections on having to [still?] “piss in a bucket” in something like her fifth Lower East Side apartment…ah, the glory days…). I found this interesting, enjoyable, and mostly informative (for you see, I’ve only lived in other cities – not the “City”). With some of the more memoir-type offerings I couldn’t help but think that this book generally is limited by an implied opposition of today (1998 to present - chain stores, Ipods, and extravagant condominiums everywhere…northern Jersey floating ashore) with before (1958 to Mayor Koch – where the city was filthy and broke, everyone squatted illegally and Avenue D mostly lived up to its reputation). This limitation I felt annoyed by as the “artists” who occupied Soho and the adjacent neighborhoods were also representative of ruptures in the often non-residential streets. Gwathmey’s gleaming beast on Astor Place is the poster child for an incipient dramatic transformation of an area that is now probably startlingly different than it was in 1900, for instance. Some of the essays certainly are more encompassing (such as Berman’s take on/history of Times Square) so I would certainly recommend to anyone who’s interested in the City and its apparent transmogrification into San Bernardino.

[Mdot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy learning the history of the cities where I live or visit. This combination of short essays is rather critical of the redevelopment of much of NYC. However, the various authors havent provided any alternatives. Also, many of the authors are former residents of NYC, either transplants or born and raised here and strongly connected to the artist community. With that being said, there is little conversation on how those communities impacted the communities they made their homes.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eclectic mix of essays by various people with something to say. Worth taking a look at but could have been a bit more hard-hitting.