Suburbanization

Abstract

Suburbanization refers to the sociospatial process whereby cities expand outwards beyond their original central areas via the formation of suburbs. Suburbs are peripheral areas lying beyond a city's boundaries, but which are interconnected to the city economically and socially, for example, via commuting. Suburbanization typically involves building new homes for either sale or rent, combined with residential mobility whereby people leave the city in order to live in suburban homes and neighborhoods. Various explanations have been offered for suburbanization including transportation development, consumer preferences, uneven capitalist spatial development, class and racial social differentiation, and industrial decentralization. There is increasing scholarly recognition given to the socially diverse nature of the suburbs along class, racial, and ethnic lines. It has also been recently suggested that complex processes of post‐suburbanization are occurring, as seen, for example, in the development of edge cities in the United States.