Suburban Nation
Group Project
Groups will form voluntarily, with 4-6 people. The task will be to study one
particular suburban community in the United States. You may choose any suburban
community, but it should be a political entity, not just a housing development.
One of the group members should have a close personal friend or relative living
there.
Your group will examine quantitative and qualitative aspects of the past,
present and future of this community.
Your task is to prepare a common four-page paper and verbal and visual
presentation. Each individual will also prepare an individual paper (details to
follow).
Your presentation should include important information and a graphic display of
census data from your chosen community.
Look at the following issues:
1. Origins, or more distant past. How did this community start, or, how did it
become a suburb? Look at one specific time, preferably from more than 40 years
ago, in the history of this community. Who lived there during that time? What
information can you get from census figures about the occupants economic status,
race, gender, age, occupations, workplaces? Who was excluded? How? What
important events or issues helped determine the character of the place (for
instance, rail lines, utopian movements, white flight, new freeways)?
2. The present. How did this area get to be the way it is now? Who lives there?
How do they compare to past occupants in terms of census categories? What
controversies or problems exist for this community as a suburb (for instance,
social, environmental, educational or economic issues)?
3. Where do we go from here? Make just one policy recommendation for the future
of this community that the group can agree on and that addresses one of the
problems you’ve identified in “the present.”