American Dreamscape: The Pursuit of Happiness in Postwar Suburbia

Rating:
Summary: Fresh perspective
Review: After reading tons of text on the ills of suburbia, I was pleased to see that someone had attempted to refute some of these accusations. He provides logical arguments on hot-button issues such as density, traffic, community interaction, etc. I have to admit that he challenged many of my opinions on issues such as urban growth. I was raised in the suburbs and I now live in the city, so I appreciate the positive characteristics of both worlds. Honestly, I can't even fathom what childhood would be like in an urban area. Right now, I can't imagine being more than 1 mile from a Chinese restaurant.

Martinson does a great job making a few important points, but he also makes a few too many stereotypes. He goes a little too far into the topic of architecture and he neglects some of the more significant social issues. He doesn't back his social discussions with enough data. Overall, I think Martinson successfully introduced a new perspective to the controversial urban growth discussion. It's definitely worth the read, especially if you're a student in an academic scenario that focuses on the "urbanist" perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Fresh perspective
Review: After reading tons of text on the ills of suburbia, I was pleased to see that someone had attempted to refute some of these accusations. He provides logical arguments on hot-button issues such as density, traffic, community interaction, etc. I have to admit that he challenged many of my opinions on issues such as urban growth. I was raised in the suburbs and I now live in the city, so I appreciate the positive characteristics of both worlds. Honestly, I can't even fathom what childhood would be like in an urban area. Right now, I can't imagine being more than 1 mile from a Chinese restaurant.

Martinson does a great job making a few important points, but he also makes a few too many stereotypes. He goes a little too far into the topic of architecture and he neglects some of the more significant social issues. He doesn't back his social discussions with enough data. Overall, I think Martinson successfully introduced a new perspective to the controversial urban growth discussion. It's definitely worth the read, especially if you're a student in an academic scenario that focuses on the "urbanist" perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Read It
Review: Considering I live outside an urban core, this introduces concepts that attempt to explain the differences between urbanites and suburbanites. As with the review by David Bargetzi, anti-suburbanites castigate people who don't think like them as un-informed dullards who've been tricked into living in the suburbs and who destroy the planet because they have a two and half car garage or(as explained in the book)they happen to have a private lawn they take care of. Private land-bad,evil,rotten. Public land-virtuous. This thinking also falls in line with the idea that by alienating or constantly lampooning suburbanites, we'll change our thinking and move back to the city. Or in the case of a David Bargetzi, the suburbs "degrade" life. If nothing else, this book gives you an honest interpretation of another side of American life. It's not perfect, but the big city ain't utopia either.

Rating:
Summary: Skip it.
Review: Mr. Martinson makes a few points over and over in this book. He enjoyed his time growing up in suburbia. Other people seem to love suburbia because there are so many of them living there. And it is wrong, according to Mr. Martinson, to criticize the way people choose to live, even if their behavior does the country as a whole and the world harm by the waste of resources and the overall degradation of life. He ridicules books that criticize the automobile and yet says almost nothing about increasing commuting time that more and more Americans put in in order to live in the suburbs. He implies that anyone who thinks Americans could live more efficiently if they were more densely populated wants nothing but 'big cities.' And the most insulting part is the premise that if many people are doing it now, it must be ok. Skip it and read A Better Place to Live, instead.

Rating:
Summary: Skip it.
Review: Mr. Martinson makes a few points over and over in this book. He enjoyed his time growing up in suburbia. Other people seem to love suburbia because there are so many of them living there. And it is wrong, according to Mr. Martinson, to criticize the way people choose to live, even if their behavior does the country as a whole and the world harm by the waste of resources and the overall degradation of life. He ridicules books that criticize the automobile and yet says almost nothing about increasing commuting time that more and more Americans put in in order to live in the suburbs. He implies that anyone who thinks Americans could live more efficiently if they were more densely populated wants nothing but 'big cities.' And the most insulting part is the premise that if many people are doing it now, it must be ok. Skip it and read A Better Place to Live, instead.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointment
Review: Suburbs are fine but not perfect, says Tom Martinson in American Dreamscape. Part memoir, part professional analysis and partly personal response, American Dreamscape adds to what Martinson calls the "disappointingly small cohort" of work that takes "U.S. suburbia on its own terms." And though imperfect, particularly in the area of fancy architectural design, suburbs stand innocent of charges hurled by the group Martinson calls "urbanists," a group that includes "much of the dominant print media, the intelligentsia, and big city politicians." The urbanists presume the virtue of cities and stultifying deadness of suburbs. Instead, Martinson's premise is that every type of community environment is important and each should be considered on its own terms. Martinson draws a line at "the routine lack of personal respect afforded those who might not agree with the urbanist dogma." The arrogance irritates him. A planner / consultant who lives in a suburb of Minneapolis, a hot-bed of "smart growth" activity, Martinson grew up in Midwest suburbs. He reviews his youth and finds it quite reasonable, full of places to go and things to do. Today's suburbs are the same, even if the ad hoc community activities remain invisible to urbanists. Martinson writes straightforwardly and throws in some dry wit along the way. He says the argument of one suburbia critic amounts to asserting, "140 million American suburbanites are simply too ignorant to know better." American suburbs have been around for 150 years and their roots go back much further into the American experience, Martinson says. What we see today is additional manifestation of two fundamentals-seeking value, "more for their money"-and the big psychological benefit of "gaining personal space," The middle class gets most of Martinson's attention. For simplification, he creates three middle class groups: Yeoman (Union laborers, for example), upper middle class (professionals, technical specialists and managers) and Gentry such as owners of major businesses, tenured academics and editorialists. The Yeoman suburbs are the main focus. Martinson finds them rich, varied and full of life. That they are architecturally dull is unfortunate but beside the point. I have to like American Dreamscape. Martinson cites an insight that occurred independently to me last year. My understanding came after hearing a New Mexico "smart growth" group describe a vision of how "we wouldn't be so auto dependent."

Generally implementing the smart growth vision would require radically reconstructing our society to insert what Martinson calls "this neighborhood-of-small-stores gentry ideal." The vision demands that people forgo the American dreams of convenience, choice and low price-all the things delivered by, say, Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Liking American Dreamscape comes for other reasons, too. The book is a reasonable length-243 pages plus 23 pages of notes followed by a source listing and an index. Like suburbs, American Dreamscape isn't perfect, though the problems are small. Martinson's early history of the country ignores the religious basis of this nation's origins. The history gets a bit tedious. Finally, something strange happens toward end of the index; another index jumps into the middle of the S's. The index is incomplete, too. Asphalt Nation, a Urbanist book given a half dozen pages of eloquent rebuttal, appears neither in the source list nor in the index.

Rating:
Summary: An Important Book
Review: Tom Martinson has done an extraordinary service by writing a value neutral look at suburbia. The book is important because the literature on urban and suburban America is badly skewed toward suburbia bashing. Martinson does not come out in favor of suburbs, rather he raises the level of discussion about the entire way spatial America is developing. This is not a mindless defense of the 'burbs,' if anything it is a book that I would call "pro-choice." His argument, in essence, is that living forms are importantly social and political in construct. Debates about the suburbs refelect class interests. The literature on urban planning seems to overlook this critical point. His description of 'yeoman' and 'gentry' classes may be simple, but is not simplistic.

Especially interesting is his historical framework, which makes the convincing case that issues of land use control are as relevant today as they were any time in the past.

The book is useful for those interested in the environmental debate, but also to historians and those interested in contemporary politics in their spatial manifestation. It should also have great practical utility in overcoming the simplistic debates over "urban sprawl" and "smart growth."

Paul Bracken, Yale University