The Fifties

The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community by Herbert J. Gans; Harvey Molotch (Foreword by) In 1955, Levitt and Sons purchased most of Willingboro Township, New Jersey and built 11,000 homes. This, their third Levittown, became the site of one of urban sociology's most famous community studies, Herbert J. Gans's The Levittowners. The product of two years of living in Levittown, the work chronicles the invention of a new community and its major institutions, the beginnings of social and political life, and the former city residents' adaptation to suburban living. Gans uses his research to reject the charge that suburbs are sterile and pathological. First published in 1967, The Levittowners is a classic of participant-observer ethnography that also paints a sensitive portrait of working-class and lower-middle-class life in America. This new edition features a foreword by Harvey Molotch that reflects on Gans's challenges to conventional wisdom.

Crestwood Heights: by John R. Seeley; R. Alexander Sim; Elizabeth W. Loosley Crestwood Heights is a study of a well-known Canadian community. It is located within the borders of one of Canada's big cities; its name symbolizes success, wealth, and social prestige; its inhabitants possess as many of the "good things of life" as most human beings ever aspire to.

Places of Their Own: African American suburbanization in the twentieth century by Andrew Wiese On Melbenan Drive just west of Atlanta, sunlight falls onto a long row of well-kept lawns. Two dozen homes line the street; behind them wooden decks and living-room windows open onto vast woodland properties. Residents returning from their jobs steer SUVs into long driveways and emerge from their automobiles. They walk to the front doors of their houses past sculptured bushes and flowers in bloom. For most people, this cozy image of suburbia does not immediately evoke images of African Americans. But as this pioneering work demonstrates, the suburbs have provided a home to black residents in increasing numbers for the past hundred years--in the last two decades alone, the numbers have nearly doubled to just under twelve million. Places of Their Own begins a hundred years ago, painting an austere portrait of the conditions that early black residents found in isolated, poor suburbs. Andrew Wiese insists, however, that they moved there by choice, withstanding racism and poverty through efforts to shape the landscape to their own needs. Turning then to the 1950s, Wiese illuminates key differences between black suburbanization in the North and South. He considers how African Americans in the South bargained for separate areas where they could develop their own neighborhoods, while many of their northern counterparts transgressed racial boundaries, settling in historically white communities. Ultimately, Wiese explores how the civil rights movement emboldened black families to purchase homes in the suburbs with increased vigor, and how the passage of civil rights legislation helped pave the way for today's black middle class. Tracing the precise contours of black migration to the suburbs over the course of the whole last century and across the entire United States, Places of Their Own will be a foundational book for anyone interested in the African American experience or the role of race and class in the making of America's suburbs.   Winner of the 2005 John G. Cawelti Book Award from the American Culture  Association. Winner of the 2005 Award for Best Book in North American Urban  History from the Urban History Association.  

Newcomers to Old Towns: suburbanization of the heartland by Sonya Salamon 2004 winner of the Robert E. Park Book Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS) of the American Sociological Association Although the death of the small town has been predicted for decades, during the 1990s the population of rural America actually increased by more than three million people. In this book, Sonya Salamon explores these rural newcomers and the impact they have on the social relationships, public spaces, and community resources of small town America. Salamon draws on richly detailed ethnographic studies of six small towns in central Illinois, including a town with upscale subdivisions that lured wealthy professionals as well as towns whose agribusinesses drew working-class Mexicano migrants and immigrants. She finds that regardless of the class or ethnicity of the newcomers, if their social status differs relative to that of oldtimers, their effect on a town has been the same: suburbanization that erodes the close-knit small town community, with especially severe consequences for small town youth. To successfully combat the homogenization of the heartland, Salamon argues, newcomers must work with oldtimers so that together they sustain the vital aspects of community life and identity that first drew them to small towns. An illustration of the recent revitalization of interest in the small town, Salamon's work provides a significant addition to the growing literature on the subject. Social scientists, sociologists, policymakers, and urban planners will appreciate this important contribution to the ongoing discussion of social capital and the transformation in the study and definition of communities.

Taking the High Road: a Metropolitan Agenda for Transportation Reform. James A. Johnson Metro Series by Bruce J. Katz (Editor); Robert Puentes (Editor) "Taking the High Road" examines the most pressing transportation challenges facing American cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas. The authors focus on the central issues in the ongoing debate and deliberations about the nation s transportation policy. They go beyond the federal debate, however, to lay out an agenda for reform that responds directly to those responsible for putting these policies into practice--leaders at the state, metropolitan, and local levels."

Unraveling Environmental Disasters by Daniel Vallero (Editor); Trevor Letcher (Editor) "Unraveling Environmental Disasters" provides scientific explanations of the most threatening current and future environmental disasters, including an analysis of ways that the disaster could have been prevented and how therisk of similar disasters can be minimized in the future. Named a 2014 Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association's "Choice "publicationTreats disasters as complex systemsProvides predictions based upon sound science, such as what the buildup of certain radiant gases in the troposphere will do, or what will happen if current transoceanic crude oil transport continuesConsiders the impact of human systems on environmental disasters"