Massimo Santanicchia

The Life and Death of Great American Suburbs: Political and Social Consequences of fifty years of Sub-Urbanisation Massimo Santanicchia

Essay from the year 2002 in the subject Sociology - Habitation, Urban Sociology, grade: A, - (Architectural Association, School of Architecture London), language: English, abstract: "Our property seems to me the most beautiful in the world. It is so close to Babylon that we enjoy all the advantages of the city, and yet when we come home we are away from the noise and dust". Written in cuneiform on a clay tablet, this letter to the King of Persia in 539 B. C. represents the first extant expression of the suburban ideal. (K. T. Jackson 1985) 2600 years later in the United States things have slightly changed; our property might still appears as the most beautiful in the world but we do not have to go to the city anymore to benefit from all the advantages of this. The "advantages" instead have moved themselves outside the city centres to constitute what Peter G. Rowe calls the "middle landscape", a heterogeneous entity that lies between the city and the countryside. What are the social and political consequences of the "middle landscape" today?