Suburbia

The most substantial thinking by Christians on urban life over the last fifty years has concentrated on the inner city. This is understandable, since this aspect of urban life had been neglected for a long time. But the majority of people live in suburbs. Though suburbia has often come under criticism, it has received less than its proper share of serious attention. For a brief time in the sixties it looked as if this situation would be redressed (see Winter, 1961; Orr and Patrick, 1970), but since then there has been only occasional analysis of suburbia—mostly negative—from a Christian point of view. Where did suburbia come from, and how has it spread? What are its advantages and disadvantages? What changes are taking place in it, and how are we to handle them? How can its strengths be enhanced and its weaknesses be minimized?

The Meaning and Limits of Suburbia

There are several ways of defining suburbia, all of them now problematic. Once it was relatively easy. Suburbs were the less densely populated areas that lay between the major cities and the sparsely settled countryside (see Towns, Small; Community, Rural), whose primary economic activities were nonagricultural and whose political life was in the hands of independent local governments. But for some time now city governments have been merging city and country functions by expanding their boundaries, annexing suburban properties to capture more lucrative taxpayers, drawing people to work across adjoining county boundaries, and integrating inner urban and suburban planning services and political structures. This has made it more difficult to define where suburbia begins and ends.

Meanwhile, on the fringes of cities, country areas have been becoming more suburbanized as city people buy up rural properties and live there in a suburban-like way. Small towns in rural areas have even developed their own suburbs. With the possibility of telecommuting, a growing number of suburbanites are settling outside big cities, in some cases even in remote states. To complicate matters more, some inner-city areas have become gentrified, and some suburbs are becoming increasingly urban in character. There is also the complexity of suburbia itself. It is by no means a monolithic phenomenon. Suburbs may be older or newer, settled or transitional, ethnic or WASP, blue- or white-collar, growing or stagnant, affluent or low-income, dormitory or industrial, open or gated.

Although these changes and variables make it difficult to define suburbia or generalize about it, as long as we keep them in mind, the word still helps us identify a significant portion of any city. Suburbia also represents a state of mind or a way of life that can characterize someone living elsewhere. In each respect suburbia has become highly significant. It is where the largest proportion of people in most Western societies live, it has the strongest commercial and political clout, and it is the location for more churches than anywhere else. Whether or not it is now in decline, as some are beginning to argue, it represents an important revolution in the way people live. It has made possible the democratization of comfortable and spacious accommodation, previously available only to the elite or new monied classes.

Origins and Development of Suburbia

How did this happen? Where did suburbia come from? To find out we have to go back to premodern times. In the Middle Ages the centers of larger cities contained a mixture of rich and poor housing, as well as of residences and workplaces. The expansion of wealth and increase in population in the seventeenth century led to the renovation of some city cores—with the building of squares for the wealthier and rebuilding of nearby homes for the poorer—and the establishing of spacious villas for the rich in agricultural settlements. The rise of the middle class was accompanied by a growing concern for the physical health of their families in the unclean city centers and for a better environment for nurturing children. This led to the creation of the suburb, a place adjacent to the city in which people who thought this way could build close to one another around a green space, such as a commons.

According to the historian Robert Fishman, the first example of this was the community of around seventy people set up around Clapham Common by William Wilberforce and others in the 1790s on the estate of one of their members. Though this new style of housing development separated work in the city from life in the home, the latter was a space in which discussion of public and private affairs took place in the company of spouse and children. For example, the movement against the slave trade was debated and organized in these homes, and women took responsibility for the general and spiritual education of their children. In other words, suburbia was preeminently an evangelical creation!

In the following century suburbia spread elsewhere in London and then to other parts of England such as Manchester—which developed the industrial suburb and became the world’s first suburban city. It migrated to America, where, through Catherine Beecher and Andrew Jackson Downing, it was influenced by the English evangelical ideology of suburbia. In places like Riverside in New York State and then Philadelphia, whose railways opened up the first suburban sprawl, suburbia spread and became established. By the end of the nineteenth century, Australia had become the first country in which the majority of the population lived in suburbs.

This whole development in newer industrializing countries was in marked contrast to the urban growth of European cities like Paris, which exhibited an ongoing preference for intensive urban rather than expansive suburban development. In the former, suburbia was encouraged through the gradual relocation of industry to the suburbs and government lending schemes. Later critical growth points were the availability of automobiles for increasing numbers of people and the high number of postwar veterans’ marriages. By the early 1970s in America too, the proportion of people living in suburbia edged ahead of that in city centers and rural areas. By the year 2000 it is estimated that 52 percent of the people in the world’s cities will be living in suburbia.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Suburbia

Suburbia has always had its critics, particularly among the wealthy, academics and writers. More than one critic has spoken of the “quiet despair of the suburbs.” People have attacked it for its lack of diversity and weaker sense of community, for its conformity and being a cultural wilderness, for its isolation from reality and retreat from larger issues. It is said to encourage materialism, allow the rule of popular taste in architecture, turn the nuclear family too much in on itself and generate boredom and alienation. For the young there is less to do and fewer job opportunities; the old are distanced from their relatives and peers. Separation of work from home life and longer commuting times fragment people’s lives and increase the pressure of time. Upkeep of homes and property taxes become a heavier burden. Suburbs drain taxes and resources from the inner city, create ethnic or working-class ghettos in their wake, and abandon the city center to public squalor and networks of freeways. In the suburbs themselves a strong civic core and even essential emergency services are often lacking.

Yet over the decades suburbia has attracted people partly because of its perceived advantages over earlier forms of urban living. There are more space and privacy, less traffic and pollution, greater safety and security. There are better schools and churches, lower housing costs and higher home ownership. There are more trees and gardens, public parks and children’s play areas, sporting and recreational options. Clubs and voluntary associations are in greater supply, and there are more activities for children. Suburbia is cleaner and quieter, more planned and orderly. It has more opportunity for private inventiveness; shops offer a wider range of goods and services; the countryside is more accessible. Even some intellectuals and writers, such as the Nobel Prize-winner Patrick Stewart, have issued strong defenses of suburbia against the criticisms of its despisers.

There is truth on both sides. There can be little doubt that the promoters of suburbia, especially those with a financial stake in its spread, and advertisers generally, have often idealized it. But many of the critiques of suburbia have come from an urban cultural elite who are often suspicious of desires to improve the family and get closer to nature. Their perceptions are also colored by secondhand impressions rather than firsthand observation. Studies of suburbia show that moving to it often results in less change and more benefits than suggested. It is less homogeneous than is often thought, and time spent traveling to and from work is much the same as before. Interaction between husband and wife, parents and children, tends to increase. There is more visiting with neighbors, and people generally experience a reduction in boredom and alienation. It is well to remember that most suburbanites have chosen to live in suburbia rather than being forced to go there.

But suburbia is changing. More and more suburbs are becoming urbanized. As shopping centers emerge in the middle of suburbia, businesses move more and more jobs into it, local and regional cultural activities increase, and people prefer to live closer to their work, many suburbs are turning into genuine urban centers. In other cases new “edge” cities, often around high-tech industries, are being established on the boundaries of major conurbations, and smaller, decaying cities surrounded by suburbia are undergoing redevelopment. What qualifies a place for inclusion in these different forms of “ex-urbs” are their having five million square feet or more of leasable office space, at least 600,000 square feet of leasable retail space, more jobs than bedrooms, and their being perceived by the population as one place. Though these new forms of city life have many attractions for those living nearby, they are also attracting the problems for which inner-city areas have become well known. The noise and pace of life, as well as crime and drug use, are increasing. But they are increasingly becoming the places where many people in newer Western societies live, work, play, shop, learn and worship.

Understanding and Living in Suburbia

Those who live in suburbia need to be more aware of its strengths and weaknesses, how it shapes them as persons, what it does to the larger city or adjoining countryside, and its impact on national and even international life. Since, as surveys show, churchgoers generally possess similar outlooks and adopt a similar lifestyle to others in suburbia, they particularly should be more aware of and troubled by their lack of distinctiveness. This is also true of the churches they attend, for mostly they do not reflect very much on how they are affected by their suburban context. They know something of the geography and demographics of their area, even of needy groups and social problems within it, but they rarely have a sense of suburbia as an enveloping culture, of the structural changes taking place within it and of the basic attitudes and values that drive it. Though sometimes they may work at making some contribution to their local area, they do not often give thought to ways in which people and institutions living in suburbia can and should benefit the whole city and country.

There are various ways in which Christians and churches can gain this understanding. Some are very simple. For example, they could encourage small groups in the church, educational programs and special occasions, to focus at some point each year on investigating their surroundings and looking for practical guidelines from Scripture, tradition, study and experience on how to respond to it. Resources to do this lie within the congregation itself. It begins by people reflecting on their own particular stories, specific settings and felt needs, as well as their common struggles, pressures and aspirations. Others in the congregation—because of their particular work, area of study or having lived for a time outside suburbia—have a more specialized contribution to make. Among these may be people who have had substantial involvement in civic affairs or in voluntary associations, have social science or theological qualifications, or have had crosscultural experience. There may also be access to others in the area who have made a special study of some aspect of suburbia.

Then it becomes a matter of working out practical strategies at the congregational, small group and family level that will maximize suburbia’s strengths and minimize its weaknesses. In broader terms this will involve the members of the congregation and the congregation as a whole intentionally seeking first the welfare of the suburb in which it exists by bringing kingdom perspectives and values to bear upon it.

• How can they serve the suburb or cluster of suburbs or suburban city in which they live? What does this mean in terms of working within it where appropriate, supporting its economy, patronizing and improving its public transport, taking an interest in civic affairs, encouraging its cultural life, investigating or writing up a local history, discerning its major social and psychological problems and collaborating with other churches to address these in a systemic way?

• How can they serve the immediate neighborhood in which they live? What does this entail in terms of spending time and building relationships within it, developing a neighborhood watch or other neighborhood associations, holding block parties or celebrating local landmark events, supporting local shops and services, banding with others to assist those who are most needy or marginal in the area, seeking ways of intentionally and appropriately bringing the gospel to it?

• How can they serve the urban core and countryside of which they are a part? What does this involve in terms of maintaining awareness of significant changes in these areas and suburbia’s contribution to them, developing partnerships with churches or Christian organizations in these places to improve understanding and channel support, using the election process to serve the purposes of the wider region rather than just issues of suburban self-interest?

• How can the gospel be brought to bear more relevantly and powerfully to people in suburbia? What does this imply for the form discipleship takes so that the suburbanites will be able to avoid its temptations and build on its advantages, becoming truly “in” but definitely not “of” suburbia?

For most people in a suburban church this will be a matter of rethinking and changing their individual, family, communal or congregational lifestyle. For a few it will be a matter of reviewing and altering their employment or broader vocation. Those whose work, business or profession directly affects the surroundings—as a manager of a corporation, public transport employee, town planner, member of an urban coalition, architect, worker in a citywide voluntary agency, or in any other way—have the added responsibility of considering how they could concretely help improve the suburb or wider city and region of which they are a part. For a few this may involve redesigning suburbia itself so that it is less vulnerable to what is presently ailing it and better equipped to enhance people’s quality of life.

Along these lines, there are some exciting experiments under way to recapture some of the older urban-village or small-town virtues that earlier forms of suburbia left behind (Langdon, 1994). These, together with the urbanizing of the suburbia already referred to, if handled rightly, offer new and interesting possibilities for overcoming many of suburbia’s liabilities. We should never regard any such developments as panaceas for what is wrong with people and the world and always recognize that the places we live in will be flawed and fail to live up to all our expectations. But our contributions in this area in tending the physical, economic, cultural and political environment in which God has placed us are one of the ways we serve the wider purposes of the kingdom of God.

» See also: City

» See also: Inner City

» See also: Neighborhood

» See also: Zoning

References and Resources

M. Baldassare, Trouble in Paradise: The Suburban Transformation in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986); P. Langdon, A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994); D. Rask, Cities Without Suburbs (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); J. R. Teagrin, The Urban Scene: Myths and Realities (New York: Random House, 1973); A. T. Walter, A Long Way from Home (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980); G. Winter, The Suburban Captivity of the Churches (New York: Doubleday, 1961).

—Robert Banks