Cities in the Suburbs

by Humphrey Carver

We are all familiar with the almost ritual lament about the desolation and sameness of the suburbs that surround our modern cities. Is this complaint inevitable or can something be done to lend variety, colour, and meaning to these spreading areas? In a book full of good questions and apt illustrations, Mr. Carver examines what has provided a sense of community for city groupings of the past and how leading planners of our day (Ebenezer Howard,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802060498
• ISBN13: 9780802060495
• Release Date: December 1962
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 154 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Urban planning and urban sprawl in the 60's

First paragraph: "Everyone likes to live in the suburbs. Everyone pokes fun at the suburbs. That's fair enough. Everyone respects those who made the suburbs. Everyone despises the suburbs. Everyone's friends live in the suburbs. Everyone hates the kind of people who live in the suburbs. Everyone wants bigger and better suburbs. Everyone thinks there is just too much suburbs. You and I live in the suburbs-it's lovely to have a nice home in the suburbs. The whole idea of suburbs fills us with dismay, alarm, and frustration. Almost everyone's business is dedicated to making life in the suburbs more and more and more enjoyable. The suburbs are a crashing bore and desolating disappointment. The suburbs are exactly what we asked for. The suburbs are exactly what we've got." An interesting view of urban sprawl at the time it was created. Authors anticipate the Canadian boomers doubling the population of the cities in the next 25 years. Chapters include TRANSFORMATION AND DISTRESS 1) Cities in the Suburbs 2)Three Lamentations, TRADITIONS AND IDEALS 1) Cities of Church and State 2) Town and country 3) Poetry and Polemics, THE URBAN REGIN 1) City and Region 2) coinstituent Parts of the City 3) Nucleus and Anti-Nucleus 4) Communities within Metropolis, TOWN CENTRES 1) Acquiring the public land 2) Market-places 3) Educational Centres 4) Glebe land for the Churches 5) A Town Centre Described, SUBURBAN LIVING 1) People and Space 2) Folk art and Fine art 3) the Young and the Old, THE OLD CENTRE OF THE CITY, THE END IS EXCELLENCE. Twelve sketches by Zoltan Kiss illustrate such principles as "The city made by steetcars with solid centre and long fingers of growth", "Clarence Stein's Radburn Plan to separate people from vehicles", and "The braod horizon of Frank Lloyd Wright's open city in the spacious American lanscape". Twenty B & W plates including some great aerial photos of urban sprawl.