Abstract
America’s suburbs have been changing profoundly over the last few decades, and they occupy an ever-growing place in our national life. As of 2020, fully 54 percent of Americans lived in suburban areas. An astonishing 45 percent of these suburbanites were nonwhite, and growing numbers live below the poverty line. This emergence demands our attention. As suburbs now house more of a cross-section of Americans, they also represent key sites of growth and equity struggles. Many of the urban planning challenges that animated the profession for years are surfacing in suburbia, and it is imperative that we understand the dynamics around these processes.
Willow Lung-Amam’s The Right to Suburbia is a welcome step in that direction. It is a rich, detailed account of how redevelopment played out in suburbia, focusing on the Washington D.C. metro region and three Maryland suburbs. The book traces the planning process that created the pressures and the resulting “battles primarily waged by Black and Latinx communities . . . over the uneven costs and benefits of redevelopment” (p. 2). Maryland’s suburbs are among the most class and racially diverse in the nation, and Maryland is considered a leader in smart growth and suburban retrofitting. One might imagine that if any place could make equitable growth work it would be Maryland. Yet the story was not so straight forward.
Lung-Amam has emerged as a leading scholar of suburban studies, whose work challenges planners and policymakers on two levels—first, to center the suburbs, and second, to center the needs and perspectives of marginalized populations in suburbia. As a scholar-activist with personal roots in the D.C. and Maryland neighborhoods she studies, her writing moves between first-person memoir, urban policy analysis, ethnography, and advocacy. An associate professor of urban studies and planning, Lung-Amam heads the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network at the University of Maryland, College Park, reflecting the synergy of her scholarship and community work.
The Right to Suburbia traces the history of “the new suburban renewal” and the equity development movements that arose in response. As Black and Brown people moved from city to suburb in significant numbers after 1970, the forces of redevelopment and displacement followed them relentlessly. Historically, metro-area government tended to favor large-scale private investment and the desires of the white middle class, and that pattern continued into the suburbs as they diversified. The “new suburban renewal” was not merely the next stage of the urban renewal process but rather a wholly new dynamic shaped by the suburban context itself, which ultimately impeded equitable development. Not only do suburbs exist in a policy blind spot, the author argues, but justice advocacy is hampered by such suburban characteristics as political fragmentation and underdeveloped nonprofits and advocacy organizations.
After an introductory chapter that lays out the book’s approach and core ideas, the story begins with a metro-wide history of segregation, redevelopment, and resistance in the nation’s capital. Chapter 2 recounts the 200-year history of segregation and racial inequality in D.C., whose bi-racial character defined the area since the 1800s. In 1926, D.C. set up its first permanent planning authority, which proceeded to clear Blacks out of the city’s desirable areas. On the periphery, Black Americans had established dozens of unplanned suburbs by 1900, which were segregated and eventually encroached upon by white suburban expansion. Over the twentieth century, whites accrued myriad advantages thanks to governmental policies, planning, renewal, and public housing schemes that tended to displace and contain Blacks, while funneling the best lands and resources to whites. Though Blacks resisted at multiple turns, such as fighting freeway displacement, the forces against them were powerful. Disinvestment followed Black and Brown communities both inside urban and suburban borders, catalyzing resistance through such groups as Empower DC and One DC.
The next three chapters focus on three case study suburbs—Silver Spring, Wheaton, and Langley Park. Lung-Amam recounts the recent history of each suburb, their transition from white to diverse, then the redevelopment campaigns and resistance that unfolded in each community. All suburbs are unincorporated, so they exist within the political universe of their respective counties—Montgomery (Silver Spring and Wheaton) and St. George’s (Langley Park). As redevelopment happened somewhat sequentially from one suburb to the next, resistance campaigns grew from weak to stronger over the course of the story.
Silver Spring was developed as an upscale white suburb in the early twentieth century, racially restricted from its beginnings. As Blacks and diverse immigrants gradually moved in after 1968, white perceptions of “decline” grew strong, and many white families left. In truth, Silver Spring had become a close, diverse community, knit together by small immigrant and minority-owned businesses, a reality that many whites simply did not recognize, calling the downtown area “dead.” The whites who remained soon acted to reclaim Silver Spring as their own. Groups of “old-school suburban activists”—white middle-class homeowners, civic groups, and business leaders—launched campaigns for moderate preservation-minded redevelopment in the downtown area and they eventually succeeded. Despite pushback from nascent activist groups seeking to give a voice to people of color, it was too little, too late. The end result was gentrification that pushed out the poor, hurt small diverse businesses, excluded people of color from decision making, and provided few affordable housing units.
Two stops down the Metro sits Wheaton, which experienced a similar redevelopment trajectory though with moderately more success in pushing back. With origins as a large estate and farm area, Wheaton boomed after World War II as a modest suburb for white federal workers, veterans, and a number of Jewish families. After 1970, Wheaton’s social profile changed rapidly as African Americans and diverse working-class immigrants moved in, including a substantial influx of Latinos from 1990 to 2010. They created an incredibly vibrant, mixed social milieu. By 2021, over one hundred stores were owned by immigrants or people of color. In 1990, a new Metro line spurred efforts to redevelop downtown Wheaton, to create a denser, more walkable downtown, while also protecting small businesses. The conflicts around this were more nuanced. Many people of color wanted the upgrades but on their own terms, in ways that were attuned to the needs of small businesses and marginalized residents. “New-school activists” voiced these demands mainly via their participation on county-appointed boards. The author traces the long process that unfolded, in fits and starts, progress and setbacks. While ultimately a scaled-down redevelopment plan incorporated some equity measures, the author concludes that it fell short in helping the most vulnerable residents and businesses.
In nearby Langley Park within Prince George’s County, famous as one of the nation’s wealthiest African American suburban areas, a vibrant immigrant suburb had emerged by the 2000s. When rumblings of redevelopment plans surfaced, another battle unfolded. This one saw more successful campaigns to protect the most marginalized residents, through robust grassroots activism, the support of some political leaders, and the novel formation of a regional coalition—along the Metro Purple Line—committed to protecting vulnerable communities along the line. The final chapter summarizes key contours of the “new suburban renewal” and reiterates the book’s core message that marginalized groups have the right to stay put and benefit from investments to their communities. The chapter concludes with lessons learned that might help other diversifying suburbs build a “suburban anti-displacement toolbox” (p. 241).
This book is engagingly written, with personal insights and memories threaded throughout. Drawing on seventy-six interviews and a wide variety of archival and documentary sources, the author deftly interweaves individual experience, history, and policy analysis. She conveys the “messiness” of the planning process in her case studies, offering a real-world glimpse of the complexity and on-the-ground challenges of pursuing equity and inclusion when it comes to suburban and urban investment. As a fierce advocate and activist, the author pulls no punches in critically recounting the injustices and resistance in these suburban redevelopment stories.
Although the book has many strengths, a few minor improvements might have lifted it even further. The book might have benefited from more analytical signposting, particularly in the case-study chapters. The issue of property ownership might have been more deliberately and consistently explored throughout, especially in the book’s first half. Too often the property owners—those raising the rents, disinvesting, or selling out—were nameless, creating faceless adversaries in the story. Also, did members of marginalized groups become property owners? If so, this may have added more complexity to the story. As scholars like Nathan Connolly and Sarah Mahler have shown, property relations within an ethnic or racial group can pose their own formidable challenges and impediments to social justice. In our era of political polarization that crosses all racial/ethnic lines, the more we can understand these dynamics, the better. But these are minor shortcomings in an otherwise excellent work.
The Right to Suburbia is a vital study that illuminates the history of suburban redevelopment, through a compelling narrative. It not only covers new scholarly ground but offers lessons for planners, activists, and communities seeking to ensure that social justice leads the way when it comes to community investment and growth. Yes, the suburbs are diversifying. This book explores how to support that process to ensure just suburban futures.
