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Book Review
| The Urban Origins of Suburban Autonomy. By Richardson Dilworth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. x + 267 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. Cloth $52.50; The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making. By Eran Ben-Joseph. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. xxi + 241 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Paper $24.00.
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| According to Sam Bass Warner, Kenneth Jackson, and other urban historians, America's suburbs emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the wealthier classes fled the city for the tranquility of rural life. First the streetcar and later the automobile spurred this extraordinary exodus. For many critics the result has been the abandonment of the urban poor, "cookie cutter" housing, environmental degradation, and the breakdown of those community ties that once enlivened American cities. |
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Together, Richardson Dilworth and Eran Ben-Joseph shed new light on urban fragmentation and the creation of suburban sprawl. A political scientist, Dilworth untangles the history of annexation attempts in the New York metropolitan area in The Urban Roots of Suburban Autonomy. He draws upon a rich store of contemporary newspaper accounts and local histories to show that urban infrastructure projects both hindered and encouraged attempts by New York City to annex outlying towns during the late 1800s. |
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Dilworth applies theories of "rational choice" to show why infrastructure projects provided both public goods and private benefits (in the form of graft and kickbacks) to urban residents and political bosses, respectively. Consequently, citizens of Yonkers resisted annexation by New York City out of fear that political bosses in New York would enrich themselves by extending their water and sewer lines into Yonkers. Moreover, Yonkers could draw upon engineering expertise from other big cities, including New York, to develop its own water works. Elsewhere, however, a lack of reliable water encouraged small towns like West Farms to support annexation with New York, already well supplied with water. In this case, West Farms residents made the "rational choice" for annexation because they desperately needed a dependable water supply. |
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Dilworth's study effectively challenges the theory that urban politics is determined by sources over which cities have little control. In fact, he shows that "there is a recursive path between city politics and at least part of the larger context—the metropolitan region in which city politics takes place" (p. 6). More importantly, he demonstrates that the relationship between infrastructure development and urbanization was a two-way street. Big city water and sewer projects could just as easily encourage suburban autonomy as urban expansion. |
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While insightful, Dilworth's description of the machinations between urban interest groups occasionally leaves the reader buried in detail. His analysis of Newark, New Jersey, for example, wades deep into debates between the Board of Trade, the Aqueduct Board, Mayor Henry Land, and various commissioners. Additional charts and maps only reinforce this confusion: Most maps show no municipal boundaries and the charts add little to the story. |
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In The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making, the MIT landscape architect Eran Ben-Joseph seeks not to uncover the roots of metropolitan fragmentation but to critique the "standards and codes that virtually dictate all aspects of urban development" (p. xii). In an elegantly written study, he traces the emergence of zoning rules and building standards from ancient times to the present. According to Ben-Joseph, nineteenth-century building codes "became the essential tools for solving the problems of health, safety, and morality" faced by crowded, industrial cities (p. 70). Yet today, he argues, such rigid guidelines have far outlived their purpose, leaving no room for innovation, higher density subdivisions, and more affordable housing. Yet all is not lost, according to the author. In part 3, Ben-Joseph outlines a vision based on new technologies, enhanced emphasis on planning, and a renewed commitment by engineers to adopt flexible construction standards. |
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Some of his conclusions are dubious. After all, some regulations are necessary to protect wetlands from developers, and the kinds of "new urbanist" communities he advocates are often highly expensive. Nevertheless, he underscores crucial problems looming in the fast growing suburbs of California, Florida, and other states. |
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Both of these books can inform current policy debates on "smart growth," and both should be required reading for urban experts. Today, more than ever, city planners should be aware that overly rigid solutions to residential needs often create thorny social and environmental problems far "down the road." |
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Charles Closmann is assistant professor of history at the University of North Florida. He is completing a manuscript on the environmental history of Hamburg, Germany, and has published articles on the influence of political ideology on urban infrastructure. He is coediting a volume on war and the environment. |
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