Although American suburbs are commonly understood as the result of growth machine efforts or are grouped in categories like edge cities or inner-ring suburbs, these approaches obscure the unique characters of individual suburbs. This study examines four consequential “character moments” in three Chicago suburbs, Naperville, West Chicago, and Wheaton, where the suburb’s character was open to public debate. These moments show character over time is critical for understanding suburbs, character moments are rare but often consequential, not all moments involve particular development projects and some may be prompted by perceived threats, and suburban character is more dynamic than typically posited.
BlakelyE. J.SnyderM. G.1997. Fortress America: Gated C communities in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
8.
BonnellV. E.HuntL.1999. Beyond the cultural turn: New directions in the study of society and culture. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
9.
FishmanR.1987. Bourgeois Utopias: The rise and fall of suburbia. New York: Basic Books.
10.
GansH. J.1967. The Levittowners: Ways of life and politics in a new suburban community. New York: Pantheon Books.
11.
GarreauJ.1991. Edge city: Life on the new frontier. New York: Doubleday.
12.
GhitterG.SmartA.2009. Mad cows, regional governance, and urban sprawl: Path dependence and unintended consequences in the Calgary Region. Urban Affairs Review44 (5): 617-44.
13.
GierynT. F.2000. A space for place in sociology. Annual Review of Sociology26:463-97.
14.
GottdienerM.1997. The theming of America: Dreams, visions, and commercial spaces. Boulder: Westview Press.
15.
HanlonB.2009. Once the American dream: Inner-ring suburbs of the metropolitan United States. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
16.
HaydenD.2003. Building suburbia: Green fields and urban growth, 1820-2000. New York: Vintage Books.
17.
JacksonK. T.1985. Crabgrass frontier: The suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
18.
KaufmanJ.KalinerM. E.2011. The re-accomplishment of place in twentieth century Vermont and New Hampshire: History repeats itself, until it doesn’t. Theory and Society40 (2): 119-54.
19.
KeatingA. D.2005. Chicagoland: Cities and suburbs in the railroad age. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
20.
KnoxP. L.2008. Metroburbia, USA. New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press.
21.
KunstlerJ. H.1993. The geography of nowhere: The rise and decline of America’s man-made landscape. New York: Simon & Schuster.
22.
LacyK. R.2004. Black spaces, black places: Strategic assimilation and identity construction in middle-class suburbia. Ethnic and Racial Studies27 (6): 908-30.
23.
LamontM.1992. Money, morals & manners: The culture of the French and the American upper-middle class. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
24.
LamontM.MolnarV.2002. The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology28:167-95.
25.
LangR.LeFurgyJ.2007a. Boomburb “buildout”: The future of development in large, fast-growing suburbs. Urban Affairs Review42 (4): 533-52.
26.
LangR.LeFurgyJ.2007b. Boomburbs: The rise of America’s accidental cities. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
27.
LiW.2009. Ethnoburb: The new ethnic community in Urban America. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press.
28.
LiebersonS.1992. Small N’s and big conclusions: An examination of the reasoning in comparative studies based on a small number of cases. In What is a case? Exploring the foundations of social inquiry, edited by RaginC. C.BeckerH. S., 105-118. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
29.
LoganJ. R.MolotchH. L.1987. Urban fortunes. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
30.
LowS. M.2003. Behind the gates: Life, security, and the pursuit of happiness in fortress America. New York: Routledge.
31.
McKenzieE.1994. Privatopia: Homeowner associations and the rise of residential private government. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
32.
McManusR.EthingtonP. J.2007. Suburbs in transition: New approaches to suburban history. Urban History34 (2): 317-37.
33.
MolotchH.1976. The city as a growth machine: Toward a political economy of place. American Journal of Sociology82 (2): 309-32.
34.
MolotchH.FreudenburgW.PaulsenK. E.2000. History repeats itself, but how? City character, urban tradition, and the accomplishment of place. American Sociological Review65:791-823.
35.
NicolaidesB. M.2002. My blue heaven: Life and politics in the working-class suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
36.
OldenburgR.1989. The great good place. New York: Paragon House.
37.
OrfieldM.2002. American metropolitics: The new suburban reality. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
38.
PaulsenK. E.2004. Making character concrete: Empirical strategies for studying place distinction. City & Community3 (3): 243-62.
39.
PhelpsN. A.WoodA. M.VallerD. C.2010. A postsuburban world? An outline of a research agenda. Environment and Planning A42:366-83.
40.
RaginC. C.1994. Constructing social research: The unity and diversity of method. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
41.
RiesmanD.GlazerN.DenneyR.1950. The lonely crowd. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
42.
SeeleyJ. R.SimR. A.LoosleyE. W.1956. Crestwood heights: A study of the culture of suburban life. New York: Basic Books.
43.
SmelserN. J.1976. Comparative methods in the social sciences. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
44.
SpillmanL.2002. Cultural sociology. Malden: Blackwell.
45.
SwidlerA.1986. Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review51 (2): 273-86.
46.
SwidlerA.2003. Talk of love: How culture matters. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
47.
TeafordJ. C.1997. Post-suburbia: Government and politics in the edge cities. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
48.
TimberlakeJ. M.HowellA. J.StaightA. J.2011. Trends in the suburbanization of racial/ethnic groups in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 1970 to 2000. Urban Affairs Review47 (2): 218-55.
49.
WhyteW. H.Jr.1956. The organization man. New York: Simon & Schuster.
50.
WieseA.2004. Places of their own: African American suburbanization in the twentieth century. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
51.
ZukinS.1995. The cultures of cities. Cambridge: Blackwell.
