Evolving suburban form: dispersion or recentralization?

Abstract

Transformations in both the approach to suburban growth expressed in planning documents and the reality of suburban development are examined. The North American suburban model, characterized by near universal reliance on the automobile, abundant land consumption, rigorous functional specialization and a dispersal of employment, retail and services, was pieced together between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. While plans from this period concentrated on the infrastructure and regulatory fundamentals of this emerging model, subsequent plans expressed growing disenchantment with this form of development, culminating in the formulation of a new vision of the suburb that breaks with the early post-war model. Examination of a Toronto suburban transect, with layers of development dating from the late 1940s to the present, reveals a mismatch between the profound suburban transformations proposed in plans and actual suburban form. The paper concludes with an assessment of the relative importance of land-use inertia and change. The possibility of an intensified, recentralized suburb that is less automobile dependent is considered.