Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900, Second Edition

by Sam Bass Warner, Jr.

Book Overview

In the last third of the nineteenth century Boston grew from a crowded merchant town, in which nearly everybody walked to work, to the modern divided metropolis. The street railway created this division of the metropolis into an inner city of commerce and slums and an outer city of commuters' suburbs. Streetcar Suburbs tells who built the new city, and why, and how. Included here is a new Introduction that considers the present suburb/city dichotomy...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674842111
• ISBN13: 9780674842113
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Wife of Descendant, of the founder of the Old Colony RR

My husband who has read this book several times now, asked me to read this book. This is not a subject I usually read about, but became very interested in because of the detail of stage's growth pattern's happen in. The history of the book has a special meaning for me with what my family engages in today & having personal items of people you will read about in the book. While I have never gotten to speak with Mr. Warner myself, my husband tells me that he is a sweet man and considered the expert in the field of Transit Orient Development & additionally done many things for the community for future generations. It is very easy to see why so many City Planners & Transportation Planners view this book as a must read because so many foundation's of what we know how a city developments today in the United States come from these areas of Boston. You have Transit Oriented Development, & many of it sub-theory's, City Public Works, The first Deed Restrictions, The first Homeowner's Association, The first Large Scale Property Management concept's, & how Railroad's & Gas Company's tied them all together for the first suburb's of the United States. Concept's that even today I see playing out in my community of South Florida. Mr. Warner has written his own history as the father of understanding how it all worked. Maybe today living in the information age, we will see him further expand upon a master piece of history & city planning.

A classic

This book is important to anyone wanting to understand why the streetcar industry was such an imporant force in shaping America's cities. While it uses Boston as a case study, you can apply the same ideas in hundreds of cities and see how the same thing happened. Streetcars were the boom/bust speculative industry of their era, just as "dot-bombs" were the boom/bust of the recent era. Of course, real estate speculaton lives on, but street railways are no longer the tool.

The History of Dorchester, Roxbury and West Roxbury

All ye people of the Parkways! Read all about the history of suburban Boston. It's all good! This is a scholarly study of the history of Roxbury, Dorchester, and West Roxbury (which includes Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Mattapan, and Hyde Park.) Have you ever wondered why Washington Street in Roslindale looks the way it does? Why one street has mansions and the next has turn of the century boarders? And why does the bus run down one street and not another? Find out in Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston. Cambridge tip: you can find cheapie copies of this book at the Harvard Press Bookstore. That's how I got mine.