Suburban Studies

2009 - Tra città e campagna: problemi correlati alla teoria e alla pratica delle indagini archeologiche territoriali nel suburbio di Roma.

by Patrizia Gioia

2009 - Tra città e campagna: problemi correlati alla teoria e alla pratica delle indagini archeologiche territoriali nel suburbio di Roma. In  Jolivet V., Pavolini C., Tomei M. A., Verger S., Volpe R. (a cura di) Suburbium II. Il Suburbio di Roma dalla fine dell’età monarchica alla nascita del sistema delle ville (V - II sec a.C.): 100-115.

Il territorio di Roma è stato da sempre oggetto di un particolare interesse verso il passato, dovuto alla presenza dei... more Il territorio di Roma è stato da sempre oggetto di un particolare interesse verso il passato, dovuto alla presenza dei resti, piuttosto evidenti, di una città tanto importante per la storia dell’antichità.
Anche la sua storia recente ha però avuto un ruolo fondamentale sia sulle scoperte archeologiche, che sull’intensità delle ricerche svolte. Infatti a partire dalla sua proclamazione di Capitale d’Italia, l’espansione urbana del piccolo nucleo ottocentesco è stata incessante, ed ha costituito nel contempo la causa di enormi distruzioni, ma anche, in molti casi, di grandi scoperte. Questo territorio si è configurato quindi come costantemente compreso tra città e campagna, anche se nel corso dei decenni ciò che era collocato originariamente in campi arati, ha fatto via via parte di un tessuto urbano sempre più fitto e più esteso. Queste specificità hanno anche portato ad affrontare la ricerca archeologica territoriale con metodologie peculiari, avendo a che fare appunto spesso con zone non del tutto urbanizzate: non campi arati, liberi e ben visibili, ma aree, se pur prive di edificazioni, aggredite e modificate dalla presenza antropica, sempre incombente.

Rome territory has always been a subject of particular interest for its past, characterized by the presence of remains, fairly visible, related to a city so important for the ancient history.
Even though its recent history has played a key role both for the archaeological discoveries, that for the intensity of researches carried out. In fact, since its proclamation as Capital of Italy, the urban expansion of the small nucleus of nineteenth-century has been unceasing, and has been, at the same time, the cause of massive destructions, but also, in many cases, of significant discoveries. Therefore the city has always had territories between town and country, although, over the decades, what was originally placed in plowed fields, has gradually become part of an increasingly dense and more extended urban framework.
Having to deal often with not fully urbanized areas, archaeological territorial research has had to adapt its methodologies to this so special context: not plowed fields, free and highly visible, but areas, even if not built, attacked and altered by human presence.

There grows the neighbourhood’: Green citizenship, creativity and life politics on eco-TV

by Tania Lewis

Published in International Journal of Cultural Studies May 2012 vol. 15 no. 3

RIGHT TO THE SUBURB? RETHINKING LEFEBVRE AND IMMIGRANT ACTIVISM

by Genevieve Carpio

RIGHT TO THE SUBURB? RETHINKING LEFEBVRE AND IMMIGRANT ACTIVISM

by Genevieve Carpio

Distribution Centers among the Rooftops: The Global Logistics Network Meets the Suburban Spatial Imaginary

by Julie Cidell

Forthcoming in 'International Journal of Urban and Regional Research'

Changes in shipping over recent decades have altered the geography of freight transportation in the USA in a number of... more Changes in shipping over recent decades have altered the geography of freight transportation in the USA in a number of ways. In particular, significant volumes of freight traffic are now traveling inland to the Ohio River valley and the Midwest. Within metropolitan areas here, large amounts of land on the suburban fringe are being developed as logistics or distribution centers in municipalities that are experiencing otherwise typical greenfield suburban growth. This article explores this development through a case study in the southwest suburbs of Chicago that are experiencing rapid growth in both population and freight distribution activity. Here, in a so-called global era of placeless flows, land use and economic development continue to be based largely on a spatial imaginary of bounded and discrete territories, with long-term environmental and economic consequences for the political units in question.

Running Out of Gas: The Energy Crisis in 1970s Suburban Narratives

by Christian Long

Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d'etudes americaines 41.3 (2011)

The Wages of Sprawl: The Experience of the Suburban Form in American Film and Fiction

by Christian Long

Scopophobia/Scopophilia: electric light and the anxiety of the gaze in postwar American architecture

by Margaret Maile Petty

chapter published in ‘Atomic Dwelling: Anxiety, Domesticity, and Postwar Architecture’ edited by Robin Schuldenfrei (Routledge, 2012), pp. 45-63.

In the postwar era interest in the “dematerializing” of traditional boundaries between enclosure and exposure in the... more In the postwar era interest in the “dematerializing” of traditional boundaries between enclosure and exposure in the private dwelling was promoted in a variety of popular media. Transparency became an essential component of “good living.” However, the increasing use of glass in residential architecture brought significant challenges to the occupation of domestic spaces. Primary among these concerns was the psychic dislocation caused by extensive visual exposure. An article in the New York Times called attention to this problem, reporting that some residents of glass buildings “develop dizziness” as well “a fear of being watched.” For many a sense of vulnerability, of being seen without being able to see, was greatly amplified in glass-enclosed spaces after dark. To address these concerns, and provide control over the visual conditions of the private dwelling, electric lighting was proposed as singularly powerful tool in the modulation of the domestic environment. Purposeful lighting was suggested as a means to create “atmosphere” and express “personality” as well as to control the transparency of glass enclosures after dark. This paper explores the use of electric lighting in the postwar era as a means to both address and mediate the gaze in the visual and social “scripting” of the domestic environment. Culling from film and cultural theory to investigate the social and aesthetic conditions “good living,” this study calls attention to the role of electric lighting in the composition of performative spaces within the postwar dwelling.

The Voyeur and the Impostor

by Margaret Maile Petty

published in PLAT 1.0 (Fall 2010): pp. 60-67.

In the mid-twentieth century the voyeur, a cinematic impostor, began to lurk around the perimeters of modern American... more In the mid-twentieth century the voyeur, a cinematic impostor, began to lurk around the perimeters of modern American domestic architecture. Like the dark and troubled plots of the contemporaneous film noir, this impostor put an ordered and controlled appearance on the architectural import of modern (and foreign) architectural ideals and materials. Like the desert mirage, architectural photography conjured visions of a new way of living. An indoor-outdoor fantasy for the American family. The camera, and the photographer behind it, cased the new glass houses in the hills of Southern California. These black and white chiaroscuro scenes, framed through transparent widescreen window walls, revealed to the popular American audience who they wanted to be and what they wanted others to think they were. Clean, modern, stylish, happy and democratic. While the family was rarely seen (except in advertisements—another impostor) it was suggested in the carefully set dining table, the angular oversized house plants, and most often, the warm burning lights.

'Living in a "Half-Baked Pageant": The Tudorbethan Semi and Suburban Modernity in Britain, 1918-39'

by Deborah Sugg Ryan

Home Cultures, Volume 8, Number 3, November 2011 , pp. 217-244

This article investigates the ways in which new suburban identities were forged through the architecture, design, and... more This article investigates the ways in which new suburban identities were forged through the architecture, design, and decoration of the modest mock-Tudor semi-detached house in the interwar years in England. It focuses particularly on the tensions between the longings for the past and aspirations for the future displayed in the architecture and interiors of “Tudorbethan“ houses. It argues that such houses embodied a specifically suburban modernity, which looked backwards to the past whilst looking forward to the future. Although contemporary critics dismissed it as ersatz and backward-looking, the Tudorbethan semi signified a coming together of nostalgia and a particularly suburban form of modernity. Speculative builders created Tudorbethan houses with modern methods of construction that combined half-oak timbering with concrete. Furthermore, whilst some of the furniture that filled the Tudorbethan semi may have been nostalgically Jacobethan in its styling, it was modern in its purpose, with metamorphic designs that made the most of small spaces. This article challenges the dominance of Modernist aesthetics and values on writing on design, architecture, and consumption by exploring popular conceptions of the “modern“ that accommodated past and present, nostalgia and modernity.

The sustainable suburban high street: a review of themes and approaches

by Laura Vaughan

The spatial signature of suburban'active'centres

by Laura Vaughan

The spatial signature of suburban town centres

by Laura Vaughan

The spatial signature of suburban town centres

by Laura Vaughan

A Look at Kitchens: Revealing the Heart of the Household

by Carol Lindquist

The Return of Organisation Man: Mad Men, commuter narratives and suburban critique

by Melissa Gregg

This is an updated version of the paper previously posted following peer review. Forthcoming in Cultural Studies Review, special issue 'On Mad Men', Pru Black and Melissa Hardie (eds), 2012.

Belägrade människor - Belägrade Rum: Om invandrargöranden och förorter

by Urban Ericsson

Book review: Bernice M. Murphy, The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

by Cara Rodway

Published in 'Journal of American Studies' 45:1 (2011)

Broadband in the Burbs: NBN Infrastructure, Spectrum Politics and the Digital Home

by Thomas Apperley

with Bjorn Nansen, Michael Arnold, & Rowan Wilken

COMMUNICATIVE REGIONALISM AND METROPOLITAN GROWTH MANAGEMENT OUTCOMES A CASE STUDY OF THREE EMPLOYMENT NODES IN BURNABY …

by Laura Tate