Suburb

“ We twisted and turned among broad, clean, tree-lined, sunlit boulevards and avenues, all sluiced down with an air that forbade any thought of fatigue, and talked of city government and municipal taxation, till, in a certain silence, we were shown a suburb of uncared-for houses, shops, and banks, whose sides and corners were rubbed greasy by the shoulders of loafers. Dirt and tin cans lay about the street. ”

“ Great, cheerless, hideously ornate flat buildings reared their zinc-tipped fronts toward the gray heaven, to show the highest aspirations of that demoralized suburb in the way of domestic architecture. ”

“ The new suburb which has thus come into existence swiftly, yet so quietly that the building of it has not scared the nightingale I heard yesternight nor the sky-larks singing while I write, has gone far toward the realization of some aims not its own, ideals that have hitherto failed. ”

“ Each suburb is fairly accessible from the centre of the city, either by a winding valley or by a bold climb up a precipice, but owing to the configuration of the ground, it is difficult to get from one suburb to another without returning to the centre and taking a fresh start. This geographical hinderance must necessarily interfere with social life, and tend to isolation of families, or to merely neighborhood association.
Although much yet remains to be done in the way of good roads, nature and art have combined to make the suburbs of the city wonderfully beautiful. ”

“ In the space of a year a locality that was in effect nothing more than farm property has been transformed during a period of unprecedented financial and business stagnation into a beautiful and rapidly growing residence suburb, with all the comforts and conveniences and appurtenances of life in the thickly built up part of the city. ”

“ Maybe it has. Sometimes I see on the faces of our commuters the unaccustomed agitation of thought. At least we still have the grace to call ourselves a suburb, and not (what we fancy ourselves) a superurb. ”

“ It is to the rise of the suburb—the island suburb—set in a sea of chlorophyll easily accessible, well planned, honestly built, that we must look in the first instance for the removal of some of the afflictions that overcrowding has brought upon us. But the suburbs, while it may do much, can not do everything, and there are other sources of relief, which it is our duty to turn to and to improve. ”

“ The suburban’s duty towards himself consists in selecting a suburb where the train shall land him nearest to his work in town; in selecting a good and reasonable house, and in finding out what amusements and occupations are available for his wife and daughters ”

“ Between one suburb and another there are often dreary spaces of bare ground, destitute of grass, and dusty or muddy according to the season. The population in some places is so sparse that you may have to wait some minutes if you want to ask your way of a passer-by. ”

“ I know of a shrewd firm of real estate men, who wished to [455] attract a certain class of residents to their suburban section, knowing that others would follow and property become more valuable. They laid out the woodsy tract with as little change from the natural conditions as they could, and still have a sanitary, convenient, and comfortable suburb. ”

“ Trees bring rain and insects, and mean damp; albeit, if we can only find a suburb where the gracious pine tree flourishes, we can dwell there without alarm. The pine-tree spells health always, and should be sought for as carefully as a family of nouveaux riches searches for its coat of arms, or some one thing that will link it on to someone else’s noble ancestors in some way or another. Therefore should the seeker after a suburban residence arm himself with a geological map of the regions round London, and make many pilgrimages and inquiries before he finally chooses. ”

“ In a region where freshly-built suburbs lie ending
'Mid plots of the glum market-gardener's ground,—
Its bare, tenantless frontages gloomily blending
With grime and neglect that are rampant all round,
Runs the street, so forlorn it could not be forlorner,
Where, looking straight down a "no thoroughfare" road,
With the blaze of a new public-house at the corner,
The sad "One-horse" Householder finds his abode! ”

“ Scattered in little groups of two or three or more, they were steadily advancing over hill and dale in the beautiful country surrounding the city, striking through in a direction not so closely built up in suburbs, for the high school was one in an outlying suburb, where beautiful homes and large estates were the rule as soon as one passed beyond its center. ”

“ And from this standpoint the holy city was a happy city; it had no suburbs. That is to say, there are all sorts of buildings outside the wall; but they are outside the wall. Everybody is conscious of being inside or outside a boundary; but it is the whole character of the true suburbs which grow round our great industrial towns that they grow, as it were, unconsciously and blindly, like grass that covers up a boundary line traced on the earth. ”

“ And to see the suburbs of a great city, the outlying habitations, in gray, crumbling adobe, makes an unpleasant impression, in spite of the fact that, from the distance, we catch a quick glimpse of a peaceful campanile and high, imposing roofs a bit beyond. ”

“ The true suburbs lie farther out. You have to go well beyond the Brixton Bon Marché before you can find such a place as Streatham, with its endless, well-kept, villa streets of red brick houses, nearly all alike, creeper and grass plot complete. Those suburbs outline a new social order; with a little experience you can easily tell the thirty-five-pounds-a-year street from the fifty-two-pounds-a-year street; you come with a feeling of familiarity upon the corner house, where lives the doctor or the surgeon. ”

“ And this, again, is most true as regards those who live in those suburbs, and those whose wealth enables them to pass to and fro in their carriages, and regale their senses with the luxury of what they there find. But what application has this, my friends, to the working-man, to the masses of our population, whose sole idea of the suburbs consists of an hour's rattling drive in a crowded street-car, and an hour's seat by the side of a dusty thoroughfare? ”

“ Concerning the estate of the suburbs of this city, in the reign of Henry II., Fitz Stephen hath these words:—“Upwards, on the west (saith he) , is the king’s palace, which is an incomparable building, rising with a vawmure and bulwark aloft upon the river, two miles from the wall of the city, but yet conjoined with a continual suburb. On all sides, without the houses of the suburbs, are the citizens’ gardens and orchards, planted with trees, both large, sightly, and adjoining together. ”

“ In the city, even, it is oppressive; in the country it is desolate; in the suburbs it is a miracle that it is ever lived through. The night-winds have not risen yet to stir the languid foliage of the sidewalk maples; the lamps are not yet lighted, to take away the gloom from the blank, staring windows of the houses near; it is too late for letters, too early for a book. In town your fancy would turn to the theatres; in the country you would occupy yourself with cares of poultry or of stock: in the suburbs you can but sit upon your threshold, and fight the predatory mosquito. ”

“ The suburb has extended, practically, to a circle of fifty miles instead of five. It is evident that a perishable commodity which every one requires at a given hour must be rapidly distributed. The distribution has lost its romance. ”

“ The suburbs, or barrios esta muros, cover more ground and contain a larger population than the city itself, and yet they are so intimately connected with it, that the first of the houses in the suburban street, stands on the very edge of the glacis. ”

“ It must be seen in the densely populated, feverishly toiling suburbs, where, as soon as morning is come, you may feel it hovering, resposeful and sweet, in the silence of the factories, passing with the ringing of church-bells and that sharp whistle of the railways, and filling the horizon, all around the outskirts of the city, with an immense song, as it were, of departure and of deliverance. ”

“ FIRST STEPS The first step to take is undoubtedly to find your suburb; the second, to discover an adaptable house; and then the third and greatest is to circumvent the many death-traps, cold-givers and misery-makers which are included in the lease; although most certainly they are not apparent in it when it is carefully brought for you to sign.
The suburbs, take them how you will, are not Paradise and can never now be made so; yet for people with middle-sized incomes and aspirations after fresh air, they are undoubtedly most necessary{2} evils. ”

“ Including the suburb of George Town, this city contains about twenty thousand inhabitants, who are scattered over a vast space, in detached masses of buildings, which appear like petty hamlets in a populous country. The intended streets are, for the most part, only distinguishable from the rugged waste, by a slight trace, like that of a newly-formed road; or, in some instances, by rows of poplar trees, which afford neither ornament nor shade. ”

“ Oh the rural suburbs of London!—the filthy suburbs!—where nothing is green but the water, nothing natural but the dirt,—where the trees are clipt into poles, and the hedges grow behind palings,—where "no thoroughfare" forbids you to walk in one place, and the dust prevents you from walking in another,—the filthy suburbs! ”

“ Garden suburbs, or suburbs developed on lines that are far more rural than is possible in the centre of a town, have sprung up all over the country, and the architect has been confronted with a new task—the task of designing a small house which can be erected at moderate cost, but which, nevertheless, provides accommodation in keeping with the demands of modern life. ”

“ Accordingly, while strolling about the suburbs, the plots of waste land, the footpaths of the high road—in fact, all these places where there are few passers-by and numerous shady nooks—they conceal their identity by wrapping themselves in these long cloaks, which are capacious enough to cover a whole family. ”

“ When I look about me I find the combination I would attain a difficult one to secure in almost any city. If I build in the suburbs, upon the most fashionable avenue, its approaches may be disagreeable and the surrounding landscape flat and uninviting. ”

“ The enormous increase in the population of London, which every year brings with it, fills up the gaps and spaces, and the metropolis is now a solid whole, with its circumference extending further and further every day into what a year ago was country. In other words, the suburbs are getting further off, and what are suburbs to-day will be town to-morrow; but still there are suburbs, and a Sunday spent in them is an interesting experience. ”

“ The city was comparatively at our door, as accessible as ever—we were really mere suburbans. We ran down in an hour to be spectators of any unusual sight, and frequently attended the evening lectures of distinguished men. It was impossible for the world to sweep on, leaving us to stagnate. ”

“ To English eyes accustomed to dingy brick houses in the suburbs of big cities, to the dreary squalor of some new [Pg 71] little town which straggles around a filthy railway station, with refuse-heaps in undeveloped fields, and a half-finished "High Street," where a sweetstuff-shop, a stationer, and an estate agent establish themselves in the gloomy hope of business, these American villages look wonderfully clean, bright, and pleasant! ”

“ But many have been deceived in regard to its size by the extensive suburbs, which are in reality numerous dispersed villages with fields interspersed, which some persons have thought to belong to the city, though they are from two to three miles distant, and surround it on all sides. ”

“ No situation could be imagined more charming without anything very picturesque or magnificent. The suburbs extend a long way beyond the old fortifications, and after driving past innumerable villas and pleasant cottages, we passed [223] under a massy square gate surmounted by a high slated roof, and rattled along a coarse lumpy pavement through streets of dirty and desolate houses, with little appearance of either wealth, comfort, or prosperity, on any side. ”

“ Villages and hamlets find themselves annexed in the most summary fashion by the once insignificant towns, and converted into suburbs, the farmhouse giving way to the factory, while the railway goods station takes the place of the picturesque dairy. The utilitarian conquers the poetical and sentimental. ”

“ These magnificent suburbs, and the town together, are said to contain above three hundred thousand inhabitants; yet the former are not near so populous, in proportion to their size, as the town; because many houses of the suburbs have extensive gardens belonging to them, and many families, who live during the winter within the fortifications, pass the summer months in the suburbs. ”

“ Moreover, since almost all the houses in the best parts of the town stand in their own gardens, no actual streets can be said to be formed by them, and the general appearance of the whole place is rather that of one of those suburbs to which the business men of our large towns at home retire after their day's toil is over, than that of the working hive itself. ”