The March of Bricks and Mortar
The publication of Exploring the Urban Past edited by David Cannadine and David Reeder, The Rise of Suburbia edited by F.M.L. Thompson and The English Terraced House by Stefan Muthesius, occasions Robert Thorne to reflect on the burgeoning interest of historians in suburban history.
The suburban growth of cities in the nineteenth century astonished contemporaries, especially when the results of each decennial census revealed how fast the young offshoots were outgrowing the centres from which they had sprung. The daily journey to work into the old city that many suburb dwellers made symbolised the dependent status of the new communities, but the further out the bricks and mortar spread the more tenuous such ties seemed to be. It appeared that there came a point when the suburbs could look after themselves, providing jobs, facilities and pleasures for most of their residents with only a partial reliance on the city to which they were linked.
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