THE SPRAWL

A scion of the suburbs considers how housing shapes destiny.

Suburbia was a largely postwar phenomenon, born of the need to provide homes for returning veterans eager to start families and trading on a long-standing dream that was hitherto reserved only for the rich—namely, “a place outside the city.” This dream was initially reserved, too, for a special class of people: whites for whom low-cost, low-interest loans were readily available courtesy of the Federal Housing Administration. That has changed, writes Diamond, who wrote of suburban life in his 2016 book Searching for John Hughes. Now there are suburbs made up of people of diverse ethnicities, albeit usually segregated. More than half of Americans live in suburbs, a fact that may surprise young city dwellers; if the countryside is ever emptier, the rings of settlements outside the cores of places such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles continue to grow. Diamond is interested in demographics but not exclusively. As the narrative progresses, the author becomes increasingly eloquent about such things as pop music—for much pop is driven by suburbanites, who share a “belief that you’re doing something bigger than the place you’re from”—literature as written by the likes of Dave Eggers and Jonathan Lethem, and film such as, yes, John Hughes’ oeuvre and Sofia Coppola’s interpretation of The Virgin Suicides. Clearly, Diamond has given a lot of thought to the “faux-pastoral” nature of the suburbs and their tendency to resist the formation of true communities. If the cultural aspects of his narrative tend to be a touch repetitive, the point is well taken, as is his thought that now-dying shopping malls across North America (cue Arcade Fire) might well be converted to community centers, “making the ones that remain into places that serve a greater purpose.”

A literate meditation on clipped-lawn places easily taken for granted but that well deserve such reflection.