Fleeing the City: Studies in the Culture and Politics of Antiurbanism

256 Pages·2009·2.362 MB·English

by  Michael J. Thompson (eds.)

Fleeing the City
Fleeing the City
Studies in the Culture and
Politics of Antiurbanism
Edited By
Michael J. Thompson
FLEEING THE CITY
Copyright © Michael J. Thompson, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-10105-0
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
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this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37641-4 ISBN 978-0-230-10105-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230101050
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fleeing the city : studies in the culture and politics of antiurbanism /
edited by Michael J. Thompson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Urbanization. 2. Urban policy. 3. Country life. I. Thompson,
Michael, 1973–
HT361.F53 2009
307.76—dc22 2009002673
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: September 2009
C O N T E N T S
List of Figures vii
List of Tables ix
Introduction 1
Part 1 Theorizing Antiurbanism
One What is Antiurbanism? A Theoretical Perspective 9
Michael J. Thompson
Two Antiurbanism in the United States, England,
and China 35
Robert A. Beauregard
Three The Origins of Antiurbanism 53
James A. Clapp
Part 2 Antiurbanism in History and Literature
Four Pastoral Ideals and City Troubles 71
Leo Marx
Five Boys in the City: Homoerotic Desire and the
Urban Refuge in Early Twentieth-Century Germany 91
Elena Mancini
Six Antiurbanism, New York, and the Early
Twentieth-Century American National Imagination 111
Angela M. Blake
vi Contents
Part 3 Antiurbanism in Society and Politics
Seven I magining the Urban Poor: Poverty and the
Fear of Cities 139
Roger A. Salerno
Eight Americans, Urbanism, and Sprawl:
An Exploration of Living Preferences 161
Emily Talen
Nine F undamentalism and Antiurbanism: The Frontier
Myth, the Christian Nation, and the Heartland 209
Eduardo Mendieta
Ten A gainst Safety, Against Security:
Reinvigorating Urban Life 231
Don Mitchell
List of Contributors 249
Index 253
F I G U R E S
8.1 Walmart Store 170
8.2 Suburban Development 171
8.3 Signage Along Arterial 172
8.4 American City, Downtown 173
8.5 American City 174
8.6 European City, High Density 175
8.7 European City, High Density 176
8.8 European City 177
T A B L E S
8.1 Images Representing Dimensions of Living
Preference—Dependent Variables 183
8.2 Sociopsychological Characteristics and
Environmental Attitudes—Explanatory Variables 187
8.3 Resident Characteristics—Selected
Explanatory Variables 189
8.4 Locational Characteristics—Selected Explanatory
Variables 190
8.5 Background Characteristics Related to
Current Housing Type 191
8.6 Summary of Crosstabulation Statistics 193
8.7 Crosstabulations, Age, and Preference for (1) Sprawl
and (2) European Urbanism 194
8.8 Crosstabulation, Walmart, and Region 195
8.9 Crosstabulations, Metropolitan Location, and
Preference for (1) Houston and (2) Paris 197
8.10 Multiple Regression Analysis Results,
European Urbanism as Dependent Variable 198
8.11 Comparison of Responses between
Two Similar Surveys 201
Introduction
Antiurbanism has received scant attention in the social scientific and
historical literature. As a theme in political, cultural, and social history
as well as a political and sociological phenomenon, antiurbanism has
been sadly understudied and undertheorized.1 Generally it is seen as a
product of the fear of cities and their anomic consequences on moral
life. Conservative reaction to modernity also included an antiurban
impulse since it was in cities that the impact of technological progress
could be seen in the ways that workers and families disintegrated and
the traditional morality of the past was called into question both in
theory and in practice. In these instances, antiurbanism was seen as a
means toward the regeneration of traditional life and values. All of this
makes sense, but the deeper valences of this problem have not been
adequately addressed. The urbanization of consciousness has given rise,
historically as well as today, to an antiurbanized consciousness; a sense
that cities and urban life more broadly are to be uniformly feared. In
this respect, although antiurbanism has largely been studied as a his-
torical reality—one confined to the reaction to the rise of modernity
and industrialism—it has by no means subsided in postindustrial soci-
eties. In this respect, understanding the ways that antiurbanism has
manifested itself in thought and practice is crucial, but it is also impor-
tant to go a step further: to probe the deeper dimensions of antiurban
sentiment in consciousness, in institutional logics, and broader patterns
of cultural production. This is the aim of the present volume.
As an idea, as a tradition, antiurbanism has changed and evolved
over time. In many ways, the essence of antiurbanism is the distinc-
tion between what is “natural” as opposed to that which is, in some
way, “artificial.” The distinction is a very dynamic one, but it essen-
tially covers the ideological field within which the antiurban impulse
operates. This, however, was an ideology that evolved over time—the
2 Introduction
complexities of city life as opposed to rural life are not historically
persistent. The idea that the city was unnatural, however, was not
something inherent to the process of cities themselves. In the ancient
Greek world, Aristotle was clear that the polis was the highest and
most perfect form of human organization and association. The polis
was, in the ancient Greek mind, necessary for human development—
for the betterment of the self and the production of the best faculties
of humankind. Aristotle’s notion of the polis as the most perfect form
of human association was mirrored by his notion of it as “ inherently
natural”: man could only evolve as truly human—as opposed to
Barbarian—within the dense ties of complex association that the polis
could provide. Cities became known not only as centers of political
and economic power, but also as places of cultural production and the
realm of human fulfillment and happiness.
The contrary to this in the ancient world was the pastoral—the
escape from the corruption of places like Athens and Rome into a place
of simplicity and peace. This manifested itself mainly in literary genres
and was not a robust political tradition or cultural mindset.2 The real
roots of antiurban thinking emerge as a reaction not to the “modern”
city, as many have assumed, but rather to the feudal city during the
seventeenth century.3 Antiurbanism did not begin as a regressive force
in the modern sense of the term. In England during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, the division between the countryside and the
city took on deep political valences. Radical Protestantism tied indi-
vidual labor to property and to virtue; its political ideology was a func-
tion of both the puritanism of English country life as well as the early
manufacturing that was emerging first outside of the cities and in the
surrounding countryside.4 This was a full expression of antiurbanism,
and it was deeply wedded to religious, political, and economic themes
that associated the city with idleness, corruption, and debauchery. The
English revolutions of the seventeenth century therefore understand-
ably originated in nonurban regions, and the reaction against the city
was tied to a liberal reaction against privilege and feudal orders of rank
just as much as it was tied to Protestant morality. It was a political and
cultural response to the decadence of urban life, of excessive wealth,
money worship, and other vices. This form of antiurbanism was a reli-
giously inspired political movement with deep cultural consequences.
Indeed, it would be carried over into the New World and also plant
the seeds of an American form of antiurbanism in the ideas of Thomas
Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Adams, Robert Park, and
Frank Lloyd Wright.5