Suburbanization

North America has shifted from being a continent of city dwellers to one of suburbanites. Since 1997, the absolute majority of the population has lived in suburbs, and the 2010 Census reported 55% of the U.S. population as suburban. Canadian figures are similar.

While everyone seems to sense what a suburb is, there is no universal consensus on its definition. The Census Bureau sidesteps the issue by simply referring to the “Metropolitan Statistical Area outside the city” (see http://www.census.gov). In this entry, suburbs are generally defined as incorporated or unincorporated spatial communities of moderate residential density that are heavily automobile dependent and lie outside the central city but within the metropolitan area and whose economic activities are nonagricultural.

Suburbs are not only the modal areas where most people live; but also they are where they work, shop, and recreate. The suburban revolution has changed suburbs from being residential commuter areas on the periphery of the city to being the core economic, commercial, and residential centers of the metropolitan area. A role reversal has taken place. Suburban nonfamily households now outnumber married-with-children households. Cities still have a higher percentage of those in poverty, but as of 2010, suburban poor outnumbered city poor by 1.6 million persons. It can be argued that suburbs have become the centers, demographically and economically, of metropolitan areas.

Such a trend seemed unlikely in the mid-20th century. At the end of World War II, the American city was at its peak. It was the industrial, commercial, and cultural center of the world, and only 20% of Americans were suburbanites. Urban writers of the time did not foresee that suburbs would contain over two thirds of metropolitan office space and manufacturing jobs or that retail trade would be concentrated in over 50,000 suburban shopping malls.