America’s suburbs
are not the homogenous places we sometimes take them for. Today’s
suburbs are racially, ethnically, and economically diverse, with as
many Democratic as Republican voters, a growing population of
renters, and rising poverty. The cliche of white picket fences is
well past its expiration date.
The history of
suburbia is equally surprising: American suburbs were once fertile
ground for utopian planning, communal living, socially-conscious
design, and integrated housing. We have forgotten that we built
suburbs like these, such as the co-housing commune of Old Economy,
Pennsylvania; a tiny-house anarchist community in Piscataway, New
Jersey; a government-planned garden city in Greenbelt, Maryland; a
racially integrated subdivision (before the Fair Housing Act) in
Trevose, Pennsylvania; experimental Modernist enclaves in Lexington,
Massachusetts; and the mixed-use, architecturally daring Reston,
Virginia.
Inside Radical
Suburbs you will find blueprints for affordable, walkable, and
integrated communities, filled with a range of environmentally sound
residential options. Radical Suburbs is a history that will help us
remake the future and rethink our assumptions of suburbia.
