Readings for today:
- Dolores Hayden, "Building the American Way: Public Subsidy, Private Space," in Eds. Setha Low and Neil Smith, The Politics of Public Space, pp. 35-48.
- Douglas Muzzio and Thomas Halper, "Pleasantville? : The Suburb and Its Representation in American Movies," Urban Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2002): 543-574.
- Kenneth T. Jackson, excerpt from Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Oxford University Press: 1985), in The Suburb Reader, edited by Becky M. Nicolaides and Andrew Wiese (Routledge: 2006), pp. 26-33.
Multimedia:
- PHOTOS: Bill Owens' Suburbia photos (and an essay on Suburbia).
- FILM: In the Suburbs (1957). Short promotion film produced by Redbook Magazine.
- FILM: Our Home Town: Levittown, PA (1954). Advertising film for the planned communities built by William Levitt & Sons.
- TV: Al Jazeera's Suburbia in Black & White (Parts 1 and 2)
- MUSIC: Screeching Weasel, "Hey Suburbia," from Boogadaboogadaboogada
- MAPS: Leavittown, Pennsylvania (1952)
For further reading and research:
- Setha Low, "The Edge and the Center: Gated Communities and the Discourse of Urban Fear," American Anthropologist, Vol. 103, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 45-58.
- "Road Tripping Through Whitopia," In These Times, March 11, 2009 (an interview with Rich Benjamin, author of Searching for Whitopia)
- Elizabeth Fraterrigo, “The Answer to Suburbia: Playboy's Urban Lifestyle” Journal of Urban History, Vol. 34 No. 5 (July 2008): 747-774.
- "Wes Winship and the Suburbs" (an essay on the Arcade Fire's album, The Suburbs).
