Suburbs: A Very Short Introduction

It sometimes seems as if suburbs are taking over the world. For the last two centuries, most urban growth has been on the edges. This book surveys not only the "Brady Bunch suburbs" of the United States but also improvised communities on the edges of Latin American cities and the high-rise suburbs of Eastern Europe and East Asia. Some suburbs have been carefully planned to the last detail by master architects while others are the result of thousands of individual decisions by households and builders. Together they have built the places that billions of people call home.