Kenneth T. Jackson's Crabgrass Frontier, or How did America become Suburbanized?

Ever since escaping, 13 years ago, from the suburban hell of Deer Park, Texas, the home of Urban Cowboy and the Houston Ship Channel, I've known two things for damn sure: first, I loathe suburbia with a pure and righteous hatred and, second, I'll never live there again.

The suburbs are caught in a double bind: they lack the charm and freedom of rural life, but they also lack the energy, jazz, wit of real American cities. The suburbs are, in short, ugly and boring. And with the seeming unending corporatization of everything, they are uniformly ugly and boring, that is, they can't even be ugly and boring in unique ways.

If you've ever wondered why and how, after WWII, America turned into the vast suburban wasteland that it has become, you need, I think, to understand at least two phenomena: the interstate freeway system and the tract house development. Crabgrass Frontier is probably the single best book for coming to grips with the shape -- or lack thereof -- of the modern American suburban landscape.