Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 7
A Suburban Nation
According to the 2000 census, the United States is a suburban nation, meaning
that the majority of Americans live in suburbs. Metropolitan areas (Metropolitan
Statistical Areas or MSAs) have a larger proportion of the total population than ever
before: 81% of the population for 24% of the territory in the 48 conterminous states.
Urban research has always been very active in the United States. The research of
Robert E. Park (Chicago School of Sociology, founded in 1915) [PAR 25] in the
fields of sociology, economics, and urban geography has proved useful in the study
of what was, from the start, known as the urban question. Indeed, the city has always
been perceived as a problem in the United States. America started out as a rural
nation. C. Gobin-Ghorra [GHO 03] demonstrates that the American pastoral ideal
has deep and old sociological and religious roots [BEE 1869] in transcendentalism
and the Protestant ideology of domestic feminism. Compared to the ideal of a simple
life in contact with nature and free from sin, the city always appeared as a den of
iniquity with its immigrants from distant origins and exotic cultures. The shape of
the American city was revolutionized by the start of the neotechnical era after the
First World War. The very rapid spread of the automobile amongst Americans
dramatically changed the scale of cities, enabling residential ideals to come closer to
those social and moral ideals that were desired by most.
The American city has a unique geography: it is strongly influenced by cars and
capitalism. To understand the geographical reality of the population of the United
States, it is necessary to examine it in the context of the metropolitan area.
