suburban history

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  4/25/2023
  

  Will the Battle of the Suburbs Play Out Differently This Time?

  by Lily Geismer

  One of the most important failures of the civil rights era was allowing affluent suburbs to block requirements to build affordable housing in their jurisdictions. As housing costs climb higher, is there the political will among Democrats to risk angering suburban voters? 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/14/2023
  

  The Local Roots of Marjorie Taylor Greene's "National Divorce" Rhetoric

  by Michan Connor

  To understand her embrace of secessionist rhetoric, don't look to the Civil War; look to the political conflict that erupted in Atlanta's suburbs in the 1990s and 2000s. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  11/28/2022
  

  Republicans Can Thank Suburban New Yorkers for House Majority

  by Stacie Taranto

  The volatile politics of New York's downstate suburbs trace back to the settlement of massive suburban tracts outside the city after World War II, which created a large constituency of homeowners concerned with "law and order." 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  10/17/2022
  

  What American Dream did Asian Immigrants Find in the Southern California Suburbs?

  by James Zarsadiaz

  Asian-American suburbs grew east of Los Angeles in part because developers catered to a growing market and in part because Asian Americans embraced some of the anti-urban tropes common in postwar America. Today conflict still surrounds how much diversity the suburban ideal can accommodate.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/10/2022
  

  Clover Lawns Replacing Grass in Reversal of Suburban Historical Pattern

  Clover lawns are trendy on social media. Historian Ted Steinberg says this is a reversal of a half century of industrial marketing and cultural values that have made the grass lawn a suburban goal. Environmentalists hope it continues. 

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• SOURCE: Hyperallergic
  8/1/2022
  

  The Architecture of the Shopping Mall Shaped by Racism, Surveillance

  The architects who envisioned early shopping malls as common spaces were overwhelmed by the imperatives of exclusion and surveillance in spaces made safe for mass consumption, argues architecture critic Alexandra Lange. 

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• 2/20/2022
  

  Malverne: The Incomplete Struggle for School Integration on Long Island

  by Alan J. Singer

  The general diversity of Long Island should be the area's strength. It's time to learn lessons from the past and stop allowing the area to be carved up into small and segregated school districts. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/1/2021
  

  Laugh at Parodies of School Board Meetings, but Take Local Politics Seriously

  by Lily Geismer and Eitan D. Hersh

  Local politics – if it involves a wide spectrum of community opinion – can help override partisan polarization, create new coalitions, and empower citizens to make meaningful change.

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  9/8/2021
  

  The Suburban Strategy

  Novelist Zinzi Clemmons looks to the history of Delaware County, Pennsylvania to consider, with help from historian Lara Putnam, the implications of Democrats' pursuit of the elusive suburban voter. 

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• SOURCE: Last Week Tonight
  7/26/2021
  

  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Ties the History of Housing Discrimination to Reparations

  John Oliver breaks down the long history of housing discrimination in the U.S., the damage it’s done, and, crucially, what we can do about it.

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• SOURCE: New York Almanack
  7/6/2021
  

  How New York’s Suburbs Got So Segregated

  by Alan J. Singer

  The builders of Long Island's mass postwar suburbs chose not to challenge existing patterns of segregation, with consequences for communities and individuals today. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/27/2021
  

  The Housing Market is Booming but Remains Deeply Unequal

  by LaDale Winling

  The standards and practices of real estate appraisal were developed in the context of white supremacy in the 1920s and since then have worked to make home ownership a path toward building wealth that has favored white Americans. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  4/20/2021
  

  How White Americans’ Refusal to Accept Busing has Kept Schools Segregated

  by Matthew D. Lassiter

  The legal distinction between "de facto" and "de jure" segregation has always been a convenient fiction allowing the perpetuation of segregation by obscuring the role of government in creating and sustaining a racially discriminatory housing market. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/26/2021
  

  The County Where Cops Call the Shots

  Aaron Bekemeyer's PhD dissertation research examines how police unions, like those in Suffolk County, NY, became powerful in the 20th Century. Jennifer Mittelstadt also comments on the exceptional status of police unions.

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• SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  3/2/2021
  

  Georgia’s Center of Political Gravity Shifting Toward Atlanta

  "As Georgia transforms from a Republican stronghold to the nation’s premier battleground state, a seismic geographic shift is underway."

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• SOURCE: NBC Los Angeles
  2/22/21
  

  New Exhibit Reckons With Glendale's Racist Past as ‘Sundown Town'

  The suburban city of Glendale, CA has initiated a series of public programs confronting its legacy as a "sundown town" where minorities, particulary African Americans, were able to work but barred from living or socializing. 

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• SOURCE: Hartford Courant
  2/19/2021
  

  West Hartford is Mostly White, While Bloomfield is Largely Black. How that Came to be Tells the Story of Racism and Segregation in American Suburbs

  Local historians in West Hartford are working to promote public knowledge of exclusionary zoning and other practices that built and maintained racial segregation in the suburbs. 

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  1/14/2021
  

  How Fear Took Over the American Suburbs

  Historian Kyle Riismandel's new book “Neighborhood of Fear” examines the cultivation of a white suburban culture of vigilantism and the political exploitation of fear of community change in the late 20th century. 

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  1/2/2021
  

  Stop Worrying About Upper-Class Suburbanites

  by Lily Geismer and Matthew Lassiter

  Two suburban historians argue that the changing demographics and political composition of American suburbs mean the Democrats' strategy of courting white moderates will foreclose building the ethnically and economically diverse coalition they need to win. 

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
  11/17/2020
  

  How Suburbs Swung the 2020 Election

  by Richard Florida, Marie Patino and Rachel Dottle

  The noted urban theorist points out that assumptions about suburban voters haven't kept up with the changing demographic realities of America's suburbs, which house a majority of the population and differ from each other as much as they do from central cities.