Research programmes

2007: Suburban Lives and Lifestyles Programme

The principle long-term aim of this programme is to provide resources that will open up new perspectives on the mass suburban dispersal which characterised the development of English society across the long twentieth century. Not only will the extent and range of the suburban dispersal be recorded but also research into first-hand accounts representative of this wave of mass migrations will make it possible to comprehend the true extent of the desire and cultural dislocation inherent in what has been hitherto chiefly regarded as simply part of the everyday background of life.

Research into the diverse and illuminating collections of personal papers and diaries dispersed in English archives will recover the pioneer experiences of those to whom it seemed, in the words on one woman in 1920s Peacehaven, 'as though we had emigrated'. A key objective is to ensure that the results of this research are presented in a format suitable for dissemination to present-day policy-makers and planners. Only if the suburban impulse is properly understood and incorporated alongside social and environmental imperatives will it be possible to build truly sustainable housing in the future.

Suburban Dispersal

The suburban lifestyles now dominant in Britain are the product of the great suburban dispersal of the nineteenth-century industrial cities - the mass historical process in which a population, who had been condensed into urban centres during the industrial age of the nineteenth century, dispersed once more across the country. This dispersal process can be imagined as rings spreading out from a stone dropped in a pond and can be traced through the historical succession of a series of suburban forms: including the railway and garden suburbs of the late nineteenth century, the inter-war 'semi-detached' suburbs, the 'plotlands' developments of the Thames Valley and South-East coast, post-war New Towns and council estates, and more recent 'executive' developments.

It is this history which is reflected in the DETR analysis of recent census returns which shows that 86 per cent of the population now live in suburban area types: 23 per cent in the inner rings of nineteenth-century suburbs, 43 per cent in the middle rings of twentieth-century suburbs and 20 per cent in the outer rings of small estates and 'executive' developments scattered throughout the open countryside.

Researching Suburban Lives and Lifestyles

Key aims of the new programme include:

• Developing a comprehensive overview of suburban dispersal in England.
• Studying suburban lives and lifestyles across the different phases of suburban dispersal in order to see if the same pattern emerges again and again or if there are structural differences between different phases
• Understanding the human impulse behind suburban dispersal in order to help find ways of reconciling it with the imperatives of sustainability arising from the finite quantity of resources available in the world
• Developing this research into information which will be available to planners and policy-makers building new developments

The Suburban Lives and Lifestyles Programme Events

The Centre is currently planning a series of events to accompany the programme. Details will be released in due course.

2006 - Suburban Futures Programme

Imagine Britain in the year 2050...

overcrowding... racial tensions... fuel riots... terrorism... curfews... martial law...green revolution...carbon zero emissions... renewable energy sources... sustainable communities... increased biodiversity... global warming... drought... famine... participatory democracy... the information age... new consciousness... post-national identity... sprawl... the killing of the countryside... restoration of traditional values... birth of a republic...end of the family... cyber sex... artificial intelligence... decline in literacy and numeracy... genetic engineering... euthanasia... consumer culture... social mobility... social malaise... fundamentalism... liberation... imperialism... multiculturalism... empowerment... alienation... classlessness... feudalism... britishness... englishness... war... peace... utopia... dystopia... urban renaissance... invincible green suburbs...

The present context

Britain is faced with key challenges concerning population movement and environmental sustainability. We need to house our rapidly changing population in ways that are socially viable while finding energy solutions which reduce global warming. Whichever options we choose will have wide ramifications not only for political and economic fields but also for the wider socio-cultural fabric which constitutes our everyday lives. The decisions we make now will affect the most fundamental ways in which we think of ourselves. Questions of identity - 'class', 'family', 'gender', 'nationality', 'race' and 'sexuality' - are at stake as well as the very meanings of concepts such as 'success', 'security' and the 'good life'.

The alternatives

Two main policy options are before us. Following the Rogers Report of 1999 and the subsequent Government White Paper, 'Our Towns and Cities: The Future - Delivering the Urban Renaissance', a consensus around suburban containment and selective intensification is in the process of development at a planning level.¹ The unspoken alternative would be to supersede the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act and its successors and so open the way for unproductive agricultural land to be used for new housing as part of a major programme of suburban and exurban expansion.

The Suburban Futures Project

Recognising that we are faced by a defining choice for Britain in the 21st century, the Centre for Suburban Studies at Kingston University has launched a project to investigate these contrasting options. The project has two main aims. First, to look back at the history of suburban development in order to understand why it has become one of the main social and cultural drivers of modern Britain. Second, to extrapolate these trends forward to the year 2050 in order to predict the outcome of their continuation and the consequences if they are abruptly halted and reversed.

The results are revealed in an interim report at the Centre's day school for planners and policy makers to be held at Kingston University on Saturday 23 September 2006.

The Suburban Futures Programme

In order to promote a wide-ranging discussion of these themes, the Centre put on the following high-profile events in 2006:

• 23 March: Suburban Futures: Participatory Lifestyles
• 7 June: Annual Suburban Studies Lecture by Professor Paul Oliver
• 23 Sept: Superbia! - The Case for the Suburbs

¹ See Nick Hubble, 'Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Sustainable Suburbs'