Tract housing in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Cul-de-sacs are hallmarks of suburban planning.

A suburban development in San Jose, California.

The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city (as in Australia and New Zealand, and generally in the United Kingdom) or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city (as in the United States and Canada). Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods. Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th century as a result of improved rail and road transport, leading to an increase in commuting. Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land.^[1] Any particular suburban area is referred to as a suburb, while suburban areas on the whole are referred to as the suburbs or suburbia, with the demonym for a suburb-dweller being suburbanite. Colloquial usage sometimes shortens the term to burb.

Etymology and usage[link]

The word is derived from the Old French subburbe, which is in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub (meaning "under") and urbs ("city"). In Ancient Rome, wealthy and important people tended to live on the hills of the city, while poorer citizens lived at lower elevations – hence "under the city". The first recorded usage of the term in English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, where the form subarbis was used.

United States and Canada[link]

In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an outlying residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality, borough, or unincorporated area outside a town or city. The latter definition is evident in the title of David Rusk's book Cities Without Suburbs (ISBN 0-943875-73-0), which promotes metropolitan government. Note, however, that this definition is not universal. In fact, many of the classic streetcar suburbs are within the political boundaries of their respective cities, such as West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a part of which has is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the West Philadelphia Streetcar Suburb Historic District. American journalist and social commentator Joel Garreau criticized the common use of the term solely to areas outside the political boundaries of major cities in his 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier when he discussed the phenomenon of edge cities in Atlanta (emphasis added):

For its part, the Canadian national statistical agency, Statistics Canada, uses a variety of definitions of "suburban" and "urban" depending of the context:

United Kingdom and Ireland[link]

In Ireland and the United Kingdom, suburb merely refers to a residential area outside the city centre, regardless of administrative boundaries.^{[citation needed]} Suburbs in this sense can be separated by open countryside from the city centre.^{[citation needed]} In large cities such as London, suburbs include formerly separate towns and villages that have been gradually absorbed during a city's growth and expansion.

Australia and New Zealand[link]

In Australia and New Zealand, suburbs have become formalised as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In rural areas of Australia their equivalents are called localities (see suburbs and localities). In Australia, the terms inner suburb and outer suburb are used to differentiate between the higher-density suburbs in proximity to the city center, and the lower-density suburbs on the outskirts of the urban area. Inner suburbs, such as Te Aro in Wellington, Prahran in Melbourne and Ultimo in Sydney, are usually characterised by higher density apartment housing and greater integration between commercial and residential areas.

History[link]

While the suburbs had originated far earlier; the suburban population in North America exploded during the post-World War II economic expansion. Returning veterans wishing to start a settled life moved en masse to the suburbs. Levittown developed as a major prototype of mass-produced housing. At the same time, African Americans were rapidly moving north for better jobs and educational opportunities than were available to them in the segregated South. Their arrival in Northern cities en masse, in addition to being followed by race riots in several large cities such as Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia, further stimulated white suburban migration.

De-investment in American cities was rampant during the time of mass suburbanization. Aging cities were left to fall apart, during a time when the country was experiencing tremendous prosperity. Industrial factories that were once the heart of the city were now being abandoned and jobs were shifting to the service sector.^[4]

In the U.S., 1950 was the first year that more people lived in suburbs than elsewhere.^[5] In the U.S, the development of the skyscraper and the sharp inflation of downtown real estate prices also led to downtowns being more fully dedicated to businesses, thus pushing residents outside the city center.

The history of suburbia is a subfield of urban history and enlists scholars across the world. Most published work looks at the origins, growth, diverse typologies, culture, and politics of suburbs, as well as to the gendered and family-oriented nature of suburban space.^[6][7] Many people have assumed that early-20th-century suburbs were enclaves for middle-class whites, a concept that carries tremendous cultural influence yet is actually stereotypical. Many suburbs are based on a heterogeneous society of working-class and minority residents, many of whom share the American Dream regarding home ownership as defined by developers and the power of advertising. Sies (2001) argues that it is necessary to examine how "suburb" is defined as well as the distinction made between cities and suburbs, geography, economic circumstances, and the interaction of numerous factors that move research beyond acceptance of stereotyping and its influence on scholarly assumptions.^[8]

Suburbia worldwide[link]

United States[link]

Suburban Dallas, Texas.

Big box shopping centers in suburban New Orleans, Louisiana.

In the United States, suburbs have a prevalence of usually detached^[9] single-family homes.^[10]

Suburban Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Many post-World War II American suburbs are characterized by:

• Lower densities than central cities, dominated by single-family homes on small^{[clarification needed]} plots of land, surrounded at close quarters by very similar dwellings.
• Zoning patterns that separate residential and commercial development, as well as different intensities and densities of development. Daily needs are not within walking distance of most homes.
• Subdivisions carved from previously rural land into multiple-home developments built by a single real estate company. These subdivisions are often segregated by minute differences in home value, creating entire communities where family incomes and demographics are almost completely homogeneous.^{[citation needed]}.
• Shopping malls and strip malls behind large parking lots instead of a classic downtown shopping district.
• A road network designed to conform to a hierarchy, including culs-de-sac, leading to larger residential streets, in turn leading to large collector roads, in place of the grid pattern common to most central cities and pre-World War II suburbs.
• A greater percentage of one-story administrative buildings than in urban areas.
• A greater percentage of whites and lesser percentage of citizens of other ethnic groups than in urban areas. Black suburbanization grew between 1970 and 1980 by 2.6% as a result of central city neighborhoods expanding into older neighborhoods vacated by whites.^[11][12][13]
• Compared to rural areas, suburbs usually have greater population density, higher standards of living, more complex road systems, more franchised stores and restaurants, and less farmland and wildlife.

By 2010 suburbs increasingly gained people in racial minority groups, as many members of minority groups became better educated, more affluent, and sought more favorable living conditions compared to inner city areas; many white Americans also moved back to city centers. Many major city downtowns (such as Downtown Miami, Downtown Detroit, or Downtown Los Angeles) are experiencing a renewal, with large population growth, residential apartment construction, and increased social, cultural, and infrastructural investments. Better public transit, proximity to work and cultural attractions, and frustration with suburban life and gridlock have attracted young Americans to the city centers.^[14]

History[link]

Prior to the 19th century, suburb often referred to the outlying areas of cities where work was most inaccessible—implicitly, where the poorest people had to live. The modern American usage of the term came about during the course of the 19th century, as improvements in transportation and sanitation made it possible for wealthy developments to exist on the outskirts of cities, for example in Brooklyn Heights.

The growth of suburbs was facilitated by the development of zoning laws, redlining and numerous innovations in transport. After World War II availability of FHA loans stimulated a housing boom in American suburbs. In the older cities of the northeast U.S., streetcar suburbs originally developed along train or trolley lines that could shuttle workers into and out of city centers where the jobs were located. This practice gave rise to the term bedroom community, meaning that most daytime business activity took place in the city, with the working population leaving the city at night for the purpose of going home to sleep.

Economic growth in the United States encouraged the suburbanization of American cities that required massive investments for the new infrastructure and homes. Consumer patterns were also shifting at this time, as purchasing power was becoming stronger and more accessible to a wider range of families. Suburban houses also brought about needs for products that were not needed in urban neighborhoods, such as lawnmowers and automobiles. During this time commercial shopping malls were being developed near suburbs to satisfy consumers' needs and their car–dependent lifestyle..^[4]

Long Island, New York in the United States became the first large–scale suburban area in the world to develop, thanks to William Levitt's Levittown, New York, which is widely considered to be the archetype of Post-World War II suburbia. Long Island's significance as a suburb derived mostly from the upper-middle-class development of entire communities in the late nineteenth century, and the rapid population growth that occurred as a result.

As car ownership rose and wider roads were built, the commuting trend accelerated in North America. This trend towards living away from towns and cities has been termed the urban exodus.

Zoning laws also contributed to the location of residential areas outside of the city center by creating wide areas or "zones" where only residential buildings were permitted. These suburban residences are built on larger lots of land than in the central city. For example, the lot size for a residence in Chicago is usually 125 feet (38 m) deep, while the width can vary from 14 feet (4.3 m) wide for a row house to 45 feet (14 m) wide for a large stand–alone house.^{[citation needed]} In the suburbs, where stand–alone houses are the rule, lots may be 85 feet (26 m) wide by 115 feet (35 m) deep, as in the Chicago suburb of Naperville.^{[citation needed]} Manufacturing and commercial buildings were segregated in other areas of the city.

View of housing development near farm in Richfield, Minnesota (1954)

Increasingly, more people moved out to the suburbs, in a trend known as suburbanization. Moving along with the population, many companies also located their offices and other facilities in the outer areas of the cities. This has resulted in increased density in older suburbs and, often, the growth of lower density suburbs even further from city centers. An alternative strategy is the deliberate design of "new towns" and the protection of green belts around cities. Some social reformers attempted to combine the best of both concepts in the garden city movement.^[15]

Since the 18th century, American urban areas have often grown faster than city boundaries. Until the 1900s, new neighborhoods usually sought or accepted annexation to the central city to obtain city services. In the 20th century, however, many suburban areas began to see independence from the central city as an asset. In some cases, white suburbanites saw self-government as a means to keep out people who could not afford the added suburban property maintenance costs not needed in city living. Federal subsidies for suburban development accelerated this process as did the practice of redlining by banks and other lending institutions.^[16] In some cities such as Miami and San Francisco, the main city is much smaller than the surrounding suburban areas, leaving the city proper with a small portion of the metro area's population and land area. Cleveland, Ohio is typical of many American central cities; its municipal borders have changed little since 1922, even though the Cleveland urbanized area has grown many times over.^{[citation needed]} Several layers of suburban municipalities now surround cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, San Francisco, Sacramento, Atlanta, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.

In April 2012, the United States Census Bureau documented the first indication that the growth of American suburbs had ceased, a trend attributed to rising gasoline prices and a change in living preferences among members of Generation Y.^[17]

Canada[link]

The Calgary Region is Canada's most suburban metropolitan region, with 67% of the population living in low-density neighborhoods in 2001.^[18]

Suburban development in Maple, Ontario. The condominiums in the background are also new-build and speak to Canada's higher suburban densities.

Canadian suburban development in Markham, Ontario, north of Toronto.

Compared to the United States, Canadian suburbs are considerably more dense, and land use patterns are often more mixed-use. There are often high- or mid-rise developments interspersed with low-rise housing tracts. The concept of the McMansion, prevalent in the USA, is not common in Canadian suburbs.In Canada, densities are generally slightly higher than in Australia, but below typical European values. Oftentimes, Canadian suburbs are less automobile-centred and transit use is more prevalent. Throughout Canada, especially in Toronto and Vancouver, there are comprehensive plans in place to curb sprawl, such as Ontario's Places to Grow act.

In determining which areas are considered "urban" and which are "suburban", the national statistical agency, Statistics Canada, has examined a number of potential methods for drawing the distinction, including municipal boundaries, age of the housing stock, distance from city hall or the central business district, and housing (but not population) density. It considers the last two, distance from center and housing density, the best measures of suburban or urban identity. Suburbs are defined as primarily single-family housing located at distance from the center of the city, while urban areas are primarily multi-family buildings near the center.^[3]

Canada is an urbanized nation where over 80% of the population live in urban areas (loosely defined), and roughly two-thirds live in one of Canada's 33 census metropolitan areas (CMAs) with a population of over 100,000. However, of this metropolitan population, in 2001 nearly half lived in low-density neighborhoods, with only one in five living in a typical "urban" neighborhood.^[18] The percentage living in low-density neighborhoods varied from a high of nearly two-thirds of Calgary CMA residents (67%), to a low of about one-third of Montreal CMA residents (34%).^[18]

The history of urban development in Canada is comparable to that in the United States: after World War II, large bedroom communities of single-family homes and shopping malls sprouted on the outskirts of Canadian cities. However, there are a number of differences. A major difference between the suburban / urban divides in Canada and the United States is the greater relevance of the concept of white flight in explaining demographic patterns in the United States. Furthermore, compared to the United States, since 1971 Canadian core cities have not experienced as much population decline, have been allowed to annex more outlying areas, and have enacted zoning policies that are more tolerant of density.^[19]

Despite these caveats, the trend in Canada has been of steady suburbanization. Population and income growth in Canadian suburbs has tended to outpace growth in core urban or rural areas. The suburban population increased 87% between 1981 and 2001, well ahead of urban growth.^[20] The majority of recent population growth in Canada's three largest metropolitan areas (Greater Toronto, Greater Montreal, and Greater Vancouver) has occurred in non-core municipalities, although this trend has already reversed itself in Toronto, where a building boom has begun to take place. This trend is also beginning to take effect in Vancouver, and to a lesser extent, Montreal. In certain cities, particularly Edmonton and Calgary, suburban growth takes place withing the city boundaries as opposed to in bedroom communities. This is due to annexation and large geographic footprint within the city borders.

Transportation in Canadian suburbs is dominated by private automobiles. Between 1992 and 2005, automobile dependence rose in Canadian suburbs, while bicycle usage declined.^[21]

The political independence of suburban municipalities from the nearby city is a sensitive political issue, since provincial governments have the power to rewrite municipal boundaries at will, and they have often dictated mergers without input from residents (recently in Nova Scotia in 1996, Ontario in 1997 and Quebec in 2002). The percentage of a CMA's population located in the core municipality varies substantially.

According to 2006 Census data, Calgary's seven suburban municipalities accounted for only 8% of the CMA’s total population. The same was true for the CMA of Winnipeg, where the suburban municipalities also made up only 9% of the CMA’s total population. The situation was completely different in the CMA of Vancouver, where 73% of the total population lived in the suburban municipalities.

—Statistics Canada, ^[3]

For this reason, Statistics Canada does not use municipal boundaries to delineate "suburbs" from "cities".

Canada's largest administratively independent suburban municipalities are those surrounding the four largest cities. Montreal is neighbored both by municipalities that lie on the same island in the St. Lawrence River, as well as "off-island suburbs" including the two largest, Laval (located on a neighboring island) and Longueuil (on the mainland), as well as a "ring" of smaller municipalities on the South and North shores of the river. From 2002 to 2006 the entire Island of Montreal was merged into one city, but this policy was partly reversed when a different party captured the provincial government. Ottawa and its large neighbor of Gatineau—both expanded greatly by city-suburb mergers in the early 2000s—face one another on the Ottawa River; the two, together with neighboring suburban towns in both Ontario and Quebec, form the National Capital Region. Toronto annexed many of the outlying suburbs in 1998. The Greater Toronto Area has many large suburban cities with its two largest being Mississauga and Brampton. Greater Vancouver has seven suburban municipalities with at least 100,000 people, with the largest being Surrey and Vancouver's direct neighbors Burnaby and Richmond. Edmonton is neighboured by St. Albert and Sherwood Park among others.

History[link]

In the 1890–1930 era part of Toronto' east-end district now known as "the Beach" changed from a "cottage colony" of summer second-homes into a metropolitan suburb dominated by the middle classes. The Beach is a representative type of pre-World War II suburban growth since it emerged slowly and piecemeal, and was inconsistent in pattern and form with a mix of housing types. The Beach exemplifies how social classes sorted themselves by income level and neighborhood. The Beach was dominated by the middle classes, with some working-class areas.^[22]

In sharp contrast to the haphazard development of "the Beach" stands the elaborately designed Montréal suburb of Mount Royal. The Canadian Northern Railway built Mount Royal northwest of Montréal in 1910 to 1925. It was a corporate suburb that was planned, designed, and developed as a real estate venture to help offset the costs of building a railway tunnel into the center of Montreal. Its main designer was Frederick Todd, a protégé of the junior Olmsted and Canada's most prominent landscape architect of the early 20th century. His design was influenced by the City Beautiful ideals of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and the garden city movement principles of Henry Vivian.^[23]

After the Second World War, a serious housing shortage and the return of large numbers of veterans led the national government, through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), to promote suburbs by offering very low cost mortgages, with small down payments and easy terms.^[24]

Other countries[link]

In many parts of the developed world, suburbs are different from the American suburb, both in terms of population and in terms of what they represent. In some cases suburbs of cities outside of North America are economically distressed areas, inhabited by higher proportions of recent immigrants, with higher delinquency rates and social problems. Sometimes the notion of suburb may even refer to people in real misery, who are kept at the limit of the city borders for economic, social, and sometimes ethnic reasons. An example in the developed world would be the banlieues of France, or the concrete suburbs of Sweden, even if the suburbs of these countries also include middle-class and upper-class neighborhoods that often consist of single-family houses. Thus some of the suburbs of most of the developed world are comparable to several inner cities of the U.S. and Canada.

The growth in the use of trains, and later automobiles and highways, increased the ease with which workers could have a job in the city while commuting in from the suburbs. In the United Kingdom, railways stimulated the first mass exodus to the suburbs. The Metropolitan Railway, for example, was active in building and promoting its own housing estates in the north-west of London, consisting mostly of detached houses on large plots, which it then marketed as "Metro-land".^[25] The Australian and New Zealand usage came about as outer areas were quickly surrounded in fast-growing cities, but retained the appellation suburb; the term was eventually applied to the original core as well.

Middle-class housing in Huixquilucan, a suburb of Mexico City.

In Mexico, suburbs are generally similar to their United States counterparts. Houses are made in many different architectural styles which may be of European, American and International architecture and which vary in size, although the main difference with the US and Canada is that houses are mainly constructed with bricks and concrete instead of wood; thus houses tend to last much longer, approximately 50 years. Suburbs can be found in Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey, and most major cities. Lomas de Chapultepec is an example of an affluent suburb, although it is located inside the city and by no means is today a suburb in the strict sense of the word. In Mexico's City Spanish the word "suburbio" is mainly used to denote the slums and urban sprawl in the outskirts of the city—mainly those found at the eastern/northeastern part of the city. In the rest of Latin America, the situation is similar to that of Mexico, with many suburbs being built, most notably in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, which have experienced a boom in the construction of suburbs since the late 70s and early 80s. As the growth of middle-class and upper-class suburbs increased, low-class squatter areas have increased, most notably "lost cities" in Mexico, barriadas in Peru, villa miserias in Argentina, asentamientos in Guatemala and favelas of Brazil.

Suburban street in Nuñez, a Middle-class neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In Africa, since the beginning of the 1990s, the development of middle-class suburbs boomed. Due to the industrialization of many African countries, particularly in cities such as Cairo, Johannesburg and Lagos, the middle class has grown. In an illustrative case of South Africa, RDP housing has been built. In much of Soweto, many houses are American in appearance, but are smaller, and often consist of a kitchen and living room, two or three bedrooms, and a bathroom. However, there are more affluent neighborhoods, more comparable to American suburbs, particularly east of the FNB Stadium. In Cape Town there is a distinct European style which is due to the European influence during the mid-1600s when the Dutch conquered the area. Houses like these are called Cape Dutch Houses and can be found in the affluent suburbs of Constantia and Bishopscourt.

Houses in Kensington, a wealthy suburb of London

In the UK, the government is seeking to impose minimum densities on newly approved housing schemes in parts of South East England. The goal is to "build sustainable communities" rather than housing estates. However, commercial concerns tend to delay the opening of services until a large number of residents have occupied the new neighbourhood.

Slums in Soweto, suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa.

In the illustrative case of Rome, Italy, in the 1920s and 1930s, suburbs were intentionally created ex novo in order to give lower classes a destination, in consideration of the actual and foreseen massive arrival of poor people from other areas of the country. Many critics have seen in this development pattern (which was circularly distributed in every direction) also a quick solution to a problem of public order (keeping the unwelcome poorest classes together with the criminals, in this way better controlled, comfortably remote from the elegant "official" town). On the other hand, the expected huge expansion of the town soon effectively covered the distance from the central town, and now those suburbs are completely engulfed by the main territory of the town. Other newer suburbs (called exurbs) were created at a further distance from them.

Bangsar, a suburb outside of downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

In Russia, the term suburb differs from the American term, but also differs from the Western European term. In North America, suburbs often refer to residential areas that house the middle and high class and are made up of single-family homes. In Russia however, a suburb refers to high-rise residential apartments which usually consist of two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. These suburbs, however are usually not in poor neighborhoods, unlike the banlieues of France.

In China, the term suburb is new, although suburbs are already being constructed rapidly. Many new suburban homes are similar to their equivalents in the United States, primarily outside Beijing and Shanghai, which also mimic Spanish and Italian architecture.^[26] In Hong Kong, however, suburbs are mostly government-planned new towns containing numerous public housing estates. New Towns such as Tin Shui Wai may gain notoriety as a slum. However, other new towns also contain private housing estates and low density developments for the upper classes.

In Japan, the construction of suburbs has boomed since the end of World War II. They are very similar to their US counterparts, and many cities are experiencing the urban sprawl effect.

In Malaysia, suburbs are common, especially in areas surrounding the Klang Valley, which is the largest conurbation in the country. These suburbs also serve as major housing areas and commuter towns. Terraced houses, semi-detached houses and shophouses are common concepts in suburbs. In certain areas such as Klang, Subang Jaya and Petaling Jaya, suburbs form the core of these places. The latter one has been turned into a satellite city of Kuala Lumpur. Suburbs are also evident in other smaller conurbations including Ipoh, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Penang.

Traffic flows[link]

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (June 2011)

Suburbs typically have longer travel times to work than traditional neighborhoods.^[27] Only the traffic within the short streets themselves is less. This is due to three factors:^{[citation needed]} almost-mandatory automobile ownership due to poor suburban bus systems, longer travel distances and the hierarchy system, which is less efficient at distributing traffic than the traditional grid of streets.

In the suburban system, most trips from one component to another component requires that cars enter a collector road^{[citation needed]}, no matter how short or long the distance is. This is compounded by the hierarchy of streets, where entire neighborhoods and subdivisions are dependent on one or two collector roads. Because all traffic is forced onto these roads, they are often heavy with traffic all day. If a traffic accident occurs on a collector road, or if road construction inhibits the flow, then the entire road system may be rendered useless until the blockage is cleared. The traditional "grown" grid, in turn, allows for a larger number of choices and alternate routes.

Suburban systems of the sprawl type are also quite inefficient for cyclists or pedestrians, as the direct route is usually not available for them either^{[citation needed]}. This encourages car trips even for distances as low as several hundreds of yards or meters (which may have become up to several miles or kilometers due to the road network). Improved sprawl systems, though retaining the car detours, possess cycle paths and footpaths connecting across the arms of the sprawl system, allowing a more direct route while still keeping the cars out of the residential and side streets.

Cultural depictions[link]

This section requires expansion.

Suburbs and suburban living have been the subject for a wide variety of films, books, television shows and songs. The American photojournalist Bill Owens documented the culture of suburbia in the 1970s, most notably in his book Suburbia. The 1962 song "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds lampoons the development of suburbia and its perceived bourgeois and conformist values,^[28] while the 1982 song Subdivisions by the Canadian band Rush also discusses suburbia.

British television series such as The Good Life, Butterflies and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin have depicted suburbia as well-manicured but relentlessly boring, and its residents as either overly conforming or prone to going stir crazy. Contrastingly, U.S. shows – such as Desperate Housewives or Weeds – portray the suburbs as concealing darker secrets behind a façade of perfectly manicured lawns, friendly people, and beautifully up-kept houses. Films such as Disturbia, have brought this theme to the cinema.

See also[link]

• Bibliography of suburbs
• Boomburbs
• Developed environments
• Ethnoburb
• Faubourg
• Levittown, Pennsylvania
• List of largest suburbs by population
• London commuter belt
• Microdistrict
• Penurbia
• Settlement types
• Suburbia bashing
• Urban rural fringe

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Suburb

• A Future Vision for the North American Suburb
• Centre for Suburban Studies
• Images of a mature north London suburb illustrating a wide range of domestic architecture
• The end of suburbia (documentary film)

The Shop Boyz are an Atlanta-based hip hop group, originating from the Kings Glen Trail in Decatur.They relocated to Des Plaines, Illinois during the early nineties. ^[1] They are most known for their single "Party Like a Rockstar" from their debut album Rockstar Mentality. The group is composed of Demetrius "Meany" Hardin, Richard "Fat" Stevens and Rasheed "Sheed" Hightower. In mid-2008, Rich "Shoo" left the group of a battle with Sheed.

Career[link]

After signing with Universal Republic Records, Shop Boyz began to record their debut album, Rockstar Mentality, which saw them create rock influenced-hip-hop. The album's lead single, "Party Like a Rockstar was released in May 2007 and acheived commercial success, reaching number two on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also topped US rap charts and charted in the top ten on pop and R&B charts, and went on to become the highest selling ringtone of 2007.^[2] With its success, their debut, Rockstar Mentality, was released on June 19, 2007. Although it debuted at 11 on the US Billboard 200, it received a negative reception from critics and became a commercial disappointment, selling fewer than 200,000 copies to date^[3] The album's second single, "They Like Me", had a similar fate, as it only charted below the top one hundred on US R&B charts. With the group only achieving minor success, they were eventually dropped by Universal Records.

In August 2008 Shop Boyz premiered "Up Thru There" as the lead single from their then-untitled second studio album. However, the song failed to gain a release for undisclosed reasons. Despite this, it still managed to chart within the lower region of US R&B charts. Shop Boyz went on to release the collaborative album, Community Service, Vol.2, with rapper, C-Murder, on March 23, 2010, which featured the track.^[4] The group independently released an Extended play, entitled Back 2 Finish What We Started, on April 4, 2011.^[5]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

1. ^ Shop Boyz by Mosi Reeves. Vibe. July 16, 2007.
2. ^ "Shop Boyz End Year with Best Selling Ringtone for 2007". Reuters. December 10, 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS140474+10-Dec-2007+BW20071210. 
3. ^ Sonia Murray. "List of winners at BET awards". Access Atlanta. http://www.accessatlanta.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/accessatlanta/MusicScene/entries/2007/10/13/list_of_winners_at_bet_awards.html. 
4. ^ http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/community-service-vol.-2/id469475905
5. ^ http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/back-2-finish-what-we-started/id430426065
6. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - Billboard 200". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229?f=305&g=Albums. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 
7. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - R&B/Hip-Hop Albums". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229?f=333&g=Albums. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 
8. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - Rap Albums". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229?f=335&g=Albums. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 
9. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - Hot 100". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 
10. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - R&B/Hip-Hop Songs". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229?f=367&g=Singles. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 
11. ^ http://api.billboard.com/apisvc/chart/v1/list?artist=shop_boyz&song=they&sdate=1990-10-10&edate=2010-12-20&api_key=bvk4re5h37dzvx87h7rf5dqz
12. ^ http://api.billboard.com/apisvc/chart/v1/list?artist=shop_boyz&song=up&sdate=1990-10-10&edate=2010-12-20&api_key=bvk4re5h37dzvx87h7rf5dqz
13. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - Rap Songs". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229?f=370&g=Singles. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 
14. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - Pop Songs". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229?f=381&g=Singles. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 
15. ^ "Shop Boyz Album & Song Chart History - Canadian Hot 100". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/shop-boyz/chart-history/860229?f=793&g=Singles. Retrieved January 8, 2011. 

External links[link]

• Official website
• Shop Boyz on Myspace
• Even Rappers Want to Be Rock Stars, The New York Times. Published April 22, 2007. Retrieved May 17, 2007.

James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler in December, 2007
Born	(1948-10-19) October 19, 1948 (age 63) New York, United States
Occupation	Author, social critic, blogger
Nationality	American
Influenced By Current Events
www.kunstler.com

James Howard Kunstler (born on October 19, 1954, New York City, New York) is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere (1994), a history of American suburbia and urban development, and the more recent The Long Emergency (2005), where he argues that declining oil production is likely to result in the end of industrialized society as we know it and force Americans to live in smaller-scale, localized, agrarian (or semi-agrarian) communities. He has written a series of science fiction novels conjecturing such a culture in the future, starting with World Made by Hand in 2008. He also gives lectures on topics related to suburbia, urban development, and the challenges of what he calls "the global oil predicament" and a resultant change in the “American Way of Life.” He is also a leading supporter of the movement known as "New Urbanism."

Background[link]

Kunstler was born in New York City to Jewish parents,^[1] who divorced when he was eight.^[2] His family then moved to the suburbs in Long Island. His father was a middleman in the diamond trade.^[1] Kunstler spent most of his childhood with his mother and stepfather, a publicist for Broadway shows.^[1] While spending summers at a boys' camp in New Hampshire, he became acquainted with the small town ethos that would later permeate many of his works. In 1966 he graduated from New York City's High School of Music & Art, and attended the State University of New York at Brockport, where he majored in Theater.

He has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT, RPI, the University of Virginia and many other colleges, and he has appeared before many professional organizations such as the AIA , the APA., and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

After college, Kunstler worked as a reporter and feature writer for a number of newspapers, and finally as a staff writer for Rolling Stone. In 1975, he began writing books and lecturing full-time. He lives in Saratoga Springs, upsate New York and was formerly married to the children's author Jennifer Armstrong.

Writing[link]

Over the course of the first 14 years of his writing career (1979–1993) Kunstler wrote seven novels.

Since the mid-1990s, he has written four non-fiction books about suburban development and diminishing global oil supplies. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, his first work on the subject, The Geography of Nowhere, discussed the effects of "cartoon architecture, junked cities, and a ravaged countryside", as he put it.^[3] Described as a jeremiad by The Washington Post, Kunstler is critic of suburbia and urban development trends throughout the United States, and is a proponent of the New Urbanism movement. According to Scott Carlson, reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Kunstler's books on the subject have become "standard reading in architecture and urban planning courses".^[4]

He describes America as a poorly planned and "tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work."^[5] In a 2001 op-ed for Planetizen, he wrote that in the wake of 9/11 the "age of skyscrapers is at an end", that no new megatowers would be built, and that existing tall buildings are destined to be dismantled.^[6]

In his books that followed, such as Home From Nowhere, The City in Mind, and The Long Emergency (2005), he pushed hard on taboo topics like a post-oil America. James Howard Kunstler says he wrote The Geography of Nowhere, "Because I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work".(http://www.kunstler.com/bio.html) He was featured in the "peak oil" documentary, The End of Suburbia, widely circulated on the internet, as well as the Canadian documentary Radiant City (2006).

In his recent science fiction novel World Made by Hand (2008), he describes a future dependent on localized production and agriculture, with little reliance on imports. The Witch of Hebron, a sequel, was released in the autumn of 2010; two more sequels are under development.

In his writings and lectures, he makes a strong case that there is no other alternative energy source on the horizon that can replace relatively cheap oil. He therefore envisions a "low energy" world that will be radically different from today's. This has contributed to his becoming an outspoken advocate for one of his solutions, a more energy-efficient rail system, and writes "we have to get cracking on the revival of the railroad system if we expect to remain a united country."^[5][7]

Reactions and criticisms[link]

Bill Kauffman has called Kunstler the "scourge of suburbia," and a "slashingly witty Jeremiah."^[8] In a review of Kunstler's weekly audio podcast, the Columbia Journalism Review described he KunstlerCast as "a weekly podcast that offers some of the smartest, most honest urban commentary around—online or off."^[3] However, in critiquing The Long Emergency, journalist Chris Hayes claims that while Kunstler makes valid points about the consequences of peak oil, he undermines his credibility with rhetoric and perceived misanthropy;^[9] likewise, Kevin Drum, another peak oil theorist, considers Kunstler to be a "crank" who hurts his own cause with "crackpot arguments".^[10] Ezra Klein, writing for The American Prospect, notes that Kunstler lacks credentials as an oil expert, and claims that his work "definitely has a crazy-guy-on-Venice feel to it."^[11] Joseph Romm, a climate change expert and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, has stated his belief that accelerating shifts toward renewable energy will maintain suburban lifestyles and that, contrary to Kunstler's arguments, "suburbia won’t be destroyed by peak oil."^[12]

Charles Bensinger, co-founder of Renewable Energy Partners of New Mexico, describes Kunstler's views as "fashionably fear-mongering" and uninformed regarding the potential of renewable energy, biofuels, energy efficiency and smart-growth policies to eliminate the need for fossil fuels.^[13] Contrarily, Paul Salopek of The Chicago Tribune finds that, "Kunstler has plotted energy starvation to its logical extremes" and points to the US Department of Energy Hirsch report as drawing similar conclusions.^[14] David Ehrenfeld, writing for American Scientist, sees Kunstler delivering a "powerful integration of science, technology, economics, finance, international politics and social change" with a "lengthy discussion of the alternatives to cheap oil."^[15]

In May 2008 oil reached $132 a barrel, lending credence to Kunstler's warnings about high energy prices.^[16] Kunstler commented on the price surge, saying "I'm not cheerleading for doom, you understand... merely asserting that we have a problem in the USA. Our behavior and our lifestyle are not consistent with reality. The markets are registering this for the moment."^[17]

Kunstler, who has no formal training in the fields in which he prognosticates,^[18] made similar dire predictions for Y2K as he makes for peak oil.^[19][20][21] Kunstler responds to this criticism by saying that a Y2K-related catastrophe was averted precisely because of the billions of dollars that were spent fixing the problem. As with programs to deal with acid rain and ozone depletion in the 1990s, a resoundingly successful, well-coordinated international response had the side effect of discrediting the very worst-case scenarios that inspired the efforts in the first place.^[22]

Kunstler has made several unsuccessful predictions regarding U.S. stock markets. In June 2005 and again in early 2006, Kunstler predicted that the Dow would crash to 4,000 by the end of the year.^[23][24] The Dow in fact reached a new peak of approximately 12,500 by the end of 2006. In his predictions for 2007, Kunstler admitted his mistake, ascribing the Dow's climb to "inertia combined with sheer luck".^[25] In January 2009, Kunstler again repeated with Dow 4000 prediction. The Dow, in fact, ended 2009 at more than twice that value.^[26]

The Albany Times Union reviewed World Made by Hand, opening with, "James Howard Kunstler is fiddling his way to the apocalypse, one jig at a time."^[27] The reviewer calls it "a grim scenario" with "an upside" or two.^[27]

Reihan Salam says James Howard Kunstler is very much a man of his time — a crankish autodidact with a deep and abiding distaste for all things newfangled, who also happens to be a blogger, and a very entertaining one at that. If you've ever felt plagued by the profound stupidity of others, you'll find a kindred spirit in Mr. Kunstler, who is one of the most gifted "haters" you'll ever have the good fortune to read. Mr. Kunstler's ur-subject is what he considers the essential despicableness of a civilization built on the promise of abundant cheap energy, and the soullessness and vulgarity of the chintzy pseudo-affluence that comes with it. You get the sense Mr. Kunstler would feel this way regardless of the long-term viability of an oil-driven economy, but conveniently enough he at some point fell under the sway of a cultish fringe of the Peak Oil movement, a group that claims the world's oil is running out fast and that, as a result, the modern world is going to come crashing down around our heads.

Kunstler has faced strong criticism for his pro-Israeli stance in the debate over the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.^[28]

Quotations[link]

This article contains too many or too-lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by editing it to take facts from excessively quoted material and rewrite them as sourced original prose. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote. (July 2010)

Energy

"...we are in danger not just of oil prices going way back up again, but of losing access to our supplies from the exporting countries. In other words, we're just as likely to face shortages as high prices, and soon. Oil shortages are certain to produce a political freak-out here unless we get our heads screwed on right..."^[29]

"the truth is that no combination of solar, wind, nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used French-fry oil will allow us to power ... the interstate highway system – or even a fraction of these things – in the future...our quandary: the American public's narrow focus on keeping all our cars running at any cost."^[30]

"... we'll have to figure out how to make things in this country again. We will not be manufacturing things at the scale, or in the manner, we were used to in, say, 1962. We'll have to do it far more modestly, using much more meager amounts of energy than we did in the past."^[29]

"The idea that we can become "energy independent" and maintain our current lifestyle is absurd."^[30]

"The second law of thermodynamics never rests."

Society

"...the American public is deathly afraid of the kind of changes we actually face – such as, the end of consumer culture, the gross loss of value in suburban real estate (which forms the bulk of the middle class's private wealth), the prospect of food and fuel scarcities, the need to re-localize our lives, the need to physically shape up to stop the costly and unnecessary drain on our medical resources, to grow more of our own food, to work harder at things that actually matter, and to save whatever we can for a difficult future."^[29]

"... we're not going back to a "consumer" economy. We're heading into a hard work economy in which people derive their pleasures and gratification more traditionally – mainly through the company of their fellow human beings..."^[29]

"Please stop referring to yourselves as consumers. "Consumers" are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, responsibilities, and duties to their fellow human beings. And as long as you are using that word “consumer,” you will be degrading the quality of the public discussion as we go into the very difficult future that we face."^[31]

Food

"... we'll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We'll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life."^[30]

Commerce

"... we're going to have to make things again, and raise things out of the earth, locally, and trade these things for money of some kind that we earn through our own productive activities."^[29]

"We'll have to restore local economic networks – the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed – made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers."^[30]

Transportation

"...we have to move away from the private automobile and commercial trucking, and the airline industry is certain to contract dramatically. When are we going to start the discussion about rebuilding a US public transit system that was once the envy of the world? It no longer matters how much Americans love their cars, or even how much investment we've made in car infrastructure."^[29]

"Fixing the U.S. passenger railroad system is probably the one project we could undertake right away that would have the greatest impact on the country's oil consumption."^[30]

"California (and every other region of America) would benefit much more from normal-speed trains running every hour on the hour on tracks that already exist than from a mega-expensive, grandiose sci-fi program that might not get built for ten years. The dregs of the Big Three automakers can and should be reorganized to produce the rolling stock for a revived railroad system."^[29]

"The motoring era is coming to an end. Heroic investments in highway infrastructure to create jobs will be a tragic waste of our dwindling capital."^[29]

"[Economic] Stimulus aimed at perpetuating mass motoring will be a tragic waste of our dwindling resources. We'd be better off aiming it at fixing the railroads (especially electrifying them), refitting our harbors with piers and warehouses in preparation to move more stuff by boats, and in repairing the electric grid."^[29]

"The airline industry is disintegrating under the enormous pressure of fuel costs. Airlines cannot fire any more employees and have already offloaded their pension obligations and outsourced their repairs. At least five small airlines have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past two months. If we don't get the passenger trains running again, Americans will be going nowhere five years from now."^[30]

"One other implication of this is the necessity to use our waterways for moving things and people again. Has anybody noticed, for instance, that the once-bustling New York Harbor, possibly the biggest and best sheltered deepwater harbor in the world, has next-to-zero operating docks left along its massive perimeter?"^[29] (In 2008, New York Harbor was the third busiest in the US out of 149, as measured by tons of cargo handled, with over 150,000,000.^[32])

Bibliography[link]

See also[link]

• Peak oil
• Psychology of previous investment
• Survivalism
• [1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• James Howard Kunstler home page
• Comment on current events by Jim Kunstler
• Interviews with the author
  • Chaos in the City. Architecture, Modernism and Peak Oil Production—James Howard Kunstler in Interview
  • James Howard Kunstler Interview in MungBeing Magazine
  • James Howard Kunstler interview in The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • Orion Magazine 5-part video interview
  • World Made By Hand interview, The Jeff Farias Show, NovaM Radio / 1480 KPHX
• TED Talks: James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia at TED in 2004

v t e Peak oil Core issues Peak oil Mitigation of peak oil Predicting the timing of peak oil Hubbert peak theory Olduvai theory Results/responses Hirsch report Rimini protocol Price of petroleum 2000s energy crisis Energy crisis Export Land Model Food vs. fuel Oil reserves Pickens Plan Simple living Swing producer Transition Towns People Albert Bartlett Colin J. Campbell David Goodstein John Michael Greer Richard Heinberg M. King Hubbert James Kunstler Jeremy Leggett Dale Allen Pfeiffer Richard Rainwater Matthew Simmons Richard C. Duncan Kenneth S. Deffeyes Books The End of Oil The Long Emergency Out of Gas The Party's Over Power Down Beyond Oil Films A Crude Awakening Collapse The End of Suburbia Oil Factor PetroApocalypse Now? How Cuba Survived Peak Oil What a Way to Go Gashole Organizations ASPO The Oil Drum Energy Watch Group ODAC OPEC OAPEC IEA Post Carbon Institute Other "peaks" Peak car Peak coal Peak copper Peak phosphorus Peak gas Peak uranium Peak water Peak wheat Peak wood

David Bowie
Bowie during the Heathen Tour in 2002.
Background information
Birth name	David Robert Jones
Born	(1947-01-08) 8 January 1947 (age 65) Brixton, London, England
Genres	Rock, glam rock, art rock, pop
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboards, harmonica, saxophone, viola, cello, koto, percussion
Years active	1964–2008
Labels	Deram, RCA, Virgin, EMI, ISO, Columbia, BMG, Pye
Associated acts	The Riot Squad, Arnold Corns, Tin Machine, The Hype, The Lower Third, The Konrads
Website	davidbowie.com

David Bowie ( /ˈboʊ.i/ BOH-ee;^[1] born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.

Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture."^[2] The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer characterised as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK top five and garnered lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, which yielded several hit singles. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. His last recorded album was Reality (2003), which was supported by the 2003–04 Reality Tour.

Buckley says of Bowie: "His influence has been unique in popular culture—he has permeated and altered more lives than any comparable figure."^[2] In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie was placed at number 29. Throughout his career, he has sold an estimated 140 million albums. In the UK, he has been awarded nine Platinum album certifications, 11 Gold and eight Silver, and in the US, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 39th on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and 23rd on their list of the best singers of all-time.

Biography[link]

1947–62: early years[link]

David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, on 8 January 1947. His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns), of Irish descent,^[3] worked as a cinema usherette, while his father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones was a promotions officer for Barnardo's. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, located near the border of the south London areas of Brixton and Stockwell. A neighbour recalled that "London in the forties was the worst possible place, and the worst possible time for a child to grow up in." Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until he was six years old, acquiring a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child—and a defiant brawler.^[4][5]

In 1953 the family moved to the suburb of Bromley, where, two years later, Bowie progressed to Burnt Ash Junior School. His voice was considered "adequate" by the school choir, and his recorder playing judged to demonstrate above-average musical ability.^[6] At the age of nine, his dancing during the newly introduced music and movement classes was strikingly imaginative: teachers called his interpretations "vividly artistic" and his poise "astonishing" for a child.^[6] The same year, his interest in music was further stimulated when his father brought home a collection of American 45s by artists including Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Platters, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley and Little Richard.^[7][8] Upon listening to "Tutti Frutti", Bowie would later say, "I had heard God".^[9] Presley's impact on him was likewise emphatic: "I saw a cousin of mine dance to ... 'Hound Dog' and I had never seen her get up and be moved so much by anything. It really impressed me, the power of the music. I started getting records immediately after that."^[8] By the end of the following year he had taken up the ukelele and tea-chest bass and begun to participate in skiffle sessions with friends, and had started to play the piano; meanwhile his stage presentation of numbers by both Presley and Chuck Berry—complete with gyrations in tribute to the original artists—to his local Wolf Cub group was described as "mesmerizing ... like someone from another planet."^[8] Failing his eleven plus exam at the conclusion of his Burnt Ash Junior education, Bowie joined Bromley Technical High School.^[10]

It was an unusual technical school, as biographer Christopher Sandford writes:

Despite its status it was, by the time David arrived in 1958, as rich in arcane ritual as any [English] public school. There were houses, named after eighteenth-century statesmen like Pitt and Wilberforce. There was a uniform, and an elaborate system of rewards and punishments. There was also an accent on languages, science and particularly design, where a collegiate atmosphere flourished under the tutorship of Owen Frampton. In David's account, Frampton led through force of personality, not intellect; his colleagues at Bromley Tech were famous for neither, and yielded the school's most gifted pupils to the arts, a regime so liberal that Frampton actively encouraged his own son, Peter, to pursue a musical career with David, a partnership briefly intact thirty years later.^[10]

Bowie studied art, music, and design, including layout and typesetting. After Terry Burns, his half-brother, introduced him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led his mother to give him a plastic alto saxophone in 1961; he was soon receiving lessons from a local musician.^[11]

In 1962, George Underwood injured Bowie's eye in a fight over a girl. Bowie owes his unusual eyes to the fact that not all the damage could be surgically repaired. Despite their fisticuffs, Underwood and Bowie remained good friends, and Underwood went on to create the artwork for Bowie's early albums.^[12]

Eyes[link]

Bowie received a serious injury at school in 1962 when his friend George Underwood, while wearing a ring on his finger, punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. Doctors feared he would become blind in that eye. After a series of operations during a four-month hospitalisation,^[13] his doctors determined that the damage could not be fully repaired and Bowie was left with faulty depth perception and a permanently dilated pupil. The latter condition has misled some to believe that Bowie has different coloured eyes, when in reality both irises are the same blue colour. ^[14]

1962–68: the Konrads to the Riot Squad[link]

Graduating from his plastic saxophone to a real instrument in 1962, Bowie formed his first band at the age of 15. Playing guitar-based rock and roll at local youth gatherings and weddings, the Konrads had a varying line-up of between four and eight members, Underwood among them.^[15] When Bowie left the technical school the following year, he informed his parents of his intention to become a pop star. His mother promptly arranged his employment as an electrician's mate. Frustrated by his band-mates' limited aspirations, Bowie left the Konrads and joined another band, the King Bees. He wrote to the newly successful washing-machine entrepreneur John Bloom inviting him to "do for us what Brian Epstein has done for the Beatles—and make another million." Bloom did not respond to the offer, but his referral to Dick James's partner Leslie Conn led to Bowie's first personal management contract.^[16]

Conn quickly began to promote Bowie. The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones and the King Bees, had no commercial success. Dissatisfied with the King Bees and their repertoire of Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon blues numbers, Bowie quit the band less than a month later to join the Manish Boys, another blues outfit, who incorporated folk and soul — "I used to dream of being their Mick Jagger", Bowie was to recall.^[16] "I Pity the Fool" was no more successful than "Liza Jane", and Bowie soon moved on again to join the Lower Third, a blues trio strongly influenced by The Who. "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" fared no better, signalling the end of Conn's contract. Declaring that he would exit the pop world "to study mime at Sadler's Wells", Bowie nevertheless remained with the Lower Third. His new manager, Ralph Horton, later instrumental in his transition to solo artist, soon witnessed Bowie's move to yet another group, the Buzz, yielding the singer's fifth unsuccessful single release, "Do Anything You Say". While with the Buzz, Bowie also joined the Riot Squad; their recordings, which included a Bowie number and Velvet Underground material, went unreleased. Ken Pitt, introduced by Horton, took over as Bowie's manager.^[17]

Dissatisfied with his stage name as Davy (and Davie) Jones, which in the mid-1960s invited confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after the 19th century American frontiersman Jim Bowie and the knife he had popularised.^[18] His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing Gnome", utilising sped-up Chipmunk-style vocals, failed to chart. Released six weeks later, his album debut, David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, met the same fate. It would be his last release for two years.^[19]

Bowie's fascination with the bizarre was fuelled when he met dancer Lindsay Kemp: "He lived on his emotions, he was a wonderful influence. His day-to-day life was the most theatrical thing I had ever seen, ever. It was everything I thought Bohemia probably was. I joined the circus."^[20] Kemp, for his part, recalled, "I didn't really teach him to be a mime artiste but to be more of himself on the outside, ... I enabled him to free the angel and demon that he is on the inside."^[20] Studying the dramatic arts under Kemp, from avant-garde theatre and mime to commedia dell'arte, Bowie became immersed in the creation of personae to present to the world. Satirising life in a British prison, meanwhile, the Bowie-penned "Over the Wall We Go" became a 1967 single for Oscar; another Bowie composition, "Silly Boy Blue", was released by Billy Fury the following year.^[21] After Kemp cast Bowie with Hermione Farthingale for a poetic minuet, the pair began dating; they soon moved into a London flat together. Playing acoustic guitar, she formed a group with Bowie and bassist John Hutchinson; between September 1968 and early 1969, when Bowie and Farthingale broke up, the trio gave a small number of concerts combining folk, Merseybeat, poetry and mime.^[22]

1969–73: psychedelic folk to glam rock[link]

[edit] Space Oddity to Hunky Dory

Because of his lack of commercial success, Bowie was forced to try to earn a living in different ways. He featured in a Lyons Maid ice cream commercial, but was rejected for another by Kit Kat.^[23] Intended as a vehicle to promote the singer, a 30-minute film featuring performances from his repertoire, Love You till Tuesday, was made. Although not released until 1984, the filming sessions in January 1969 led to unexpected success when Bowie told the producers, "That film of yours—I've got a new song for it." He then demoed the song that would provide his commercial breakthrough. "Space Oddity" was released later in the year to coincide with the first moon landing.^[23] Breaking up with Farthingale shortly after completion of the film, Bowie moved in with Mary Finnigan as her lodger.^[24] Continuing the divergence from rock and roll and blues begun by his work with Farthingale, Bowie joined forces with Finnigan, Christina Ostrom and Barrie Jackson to run a folk club on Sunday nights at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street.^[24] This soon morphed into the Beckenham Arts Lab, and became extremely popular. The Arts Lab hosted a free festival in a local park, later immortalised by Bowie in his song "Memory of a Free Festival".^[25] "Space Oddity" was released on 11 July, five days ahead of the Apollo 11 launch, to become a UK top five hit. Bowie's second album, Space Oddity, followed in November; originally issued in the UK as David Bowie, it caused some confusion with its predecessor of the same name, and the early US release was instead titled Man of Words/Man of Music. Featuring philosophical post-hippie lyrics on peace, love and morality, its acoustic folk rock occasionally fortified by harder rock, the album was not a commercial success at the time of its release.^[26]

Bowie met Angela Barnett in April 1969. They would marry within a year. Her impact on him was immediate, and her involvement in his career far-reaching, leaving Pitt with limited influence.^[27] Having established himself as a solo artist with "Space Oddity", Bowie now began to sense a lack: "a full-time band for gigs and recording—people he could relate to personally".^[28] The shortcoming was underlined by his artistic rivalry with Marc Bolan, who was at the time acting as his session guitarist.^[28] A band was duly assembled. John Cambridge, a drummer Bowie met at the Arts Lab, was joined by Tony Visconti on bass and Mick Ronson on electric guitar. Known as The Hype, the band members created characters for themselves and wore elaborate costumes that prefigured the glam style of The Spiders From Mars. After a disastrous opening gig at the London Roundhouse, they reverted to a configuration presenting Bowie as a solo artist.^[28][29] Their initial studio work was marred by a heated disagreement between Bowie and Cambridge over the latter's drumming style; matters came to a head when Bowie, enraged, accused, "You're fucking up my album." Cambridge summarily quit and was replaced by Mick Woodmansey.^[30] Not long after, in a move that would result in years of litigation, at the conclusion of which Bowie would be forced to pay Pitt compensation, the singer fired his manager, replacing him with Tony Defries.^[30]

The studio sessions continued and resulted in Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970). Characterised by the heavy rock sound of his new backing band, it was a marked departure from the acoustic guitar and folk rock style established by Space Oddity. To promote it in the United States, Mercury Records financed a coast-to-coast publicity tour in which Bowie, between January and February 1971, was interviewed by radio stations and the media. Exploiting his androgynous appearance, the original cover of the UK version unveiled two months later would depict the singer wearing a dress: taking the garment with him, he wore it during interviews—to the approval of critics, including Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn who described him as "ravishing, almost disconcertingly reminiscent of Lauren Bacall"—and in the street, to mixed reaction including laughter and, in the case of one male pedestrian, producing a gun and telling Bowie to "kiss my ass".^[31][32] During the tour Bowie's observation of two seminal American proto-punk artists led him to develop a concept that would eventually find form in the Ziggy Stardust character: a melding of the persona of Iggy Pop with the music of Lou Reed, producing "the ultimate pop idol".^[31] A girlfriend recalled his "scrawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy", and on his return to England he declared his intention to create a character "who looks like he's landed from Mars".^[31]

Hunky Dory (1971) found Visconti, Bowie's producer and bassist, supplanted in both roles, by Ken Scott and Trevor Bolder respectively. The album saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of "Space Oddity", with light fare such as "Kooks", a song written for his son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born on 30 May.^[33] (His parents chose "his kooky name"—he would be known as Zowie for the next 12 years—after the Greek word zoe, life.)^[34] Elsewhere, the album explored more serious themes, and found Bowie paying unusually direct homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen Bitch", a Velvet Underground pastiche. It was not a significant commercial success at the time^[35] but was ranked No.16 by voters in the All Time Top 1000 Albums.

[edit] Ziggy Stardust

David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust Tour

With his next venture, Bowie, in the words of biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture".^[2] Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed red, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey—at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth on 10 February 1972.^[36] The show was hugely popular, catapulting him to stardom as he toured the UK over the course of the next six months and creating, as described by Buckley, a "cult of Bowie" that was "unique—its influence lasted longer and has been more creative than perhaps almost any other force within pop fandom."^[36] The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), combining the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock and pop of Hunky Dory, was released in June. "Starman", issued as an April single ahead of the album, was to cement Bowie's UK breakthrough: both single and album charted rapidly following his July Top of the Pops performance of the song. The album, which would remain in the chart for two years, was soon joined there by the six-month-old Hunky Dory. At the same time the non-album single "John, I’m Only Dancing", and "All the Young Dudes", a song he wrote and produced for Mott the Hoople, became UK hits. The Ziggy Stardust Tour continued to the United States.^[37]

Bowie contributed backing vocals to Lou Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough Transformer, co-producing the album with Mick Ronson.^[38] His own Aladdin Sane (1973) topped the UK chart, his first number one album. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", it contained songs he wrote while travelling to and across the United States during the earlier part of the Ziggy tour, which now continued to Japan to promote the new album. Aladdin Sane spawned the UK top five singles "The Jean Genie" and "Drive-In Saturday".^[39][40]

Bowie's love of acting led his total immersion in the characters he created for his music. "Offstage I'm a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David." With satisfaction came severe personal difficulties: acting the same role over an extended period, it became impossible for him to separate Ziggy Stardust—and, later, the Thin White Duke—from his own character offstage. Ziggy, Bowie said, "wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to go sour ... My whole personality was affected. It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity."^[41] His later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar.^[42] Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. Footage from the final show was released in 1983 for the film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.^[43]

	"Ziggy Stardust" noicon Sample of "Ziggy Stardust" (1972). A pioneer of glam rock, Bowie performed as the character Ziggy Stardust, backed by The Spiders from Mars.
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After breaking up the Spiders from Mars, Bowie attempted to move on from his Ziggy persona. His back catalogue was now highly sought: The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972 along with Space Oddity. "Life on Mars?", from Hunky Dory, was released in June 1973 and made number three in the UK singles chart. Entering the same chart in September, Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome", would reach number four.^[44] Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, followed in October, producing a UK number three hit in "Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. It brought the total number of Bowie albums currently in the UK chart to six.^[45]

1974–76: soul, funk and the Thin White Duke[link]

Bowie performing during the 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour

Bowie moved to the United States in 1974, initially staying in New York City before settling in Los Angeles.^[46] Diamond Dogs (1974), parts of which found him heading towards soul and funk, was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music.^[47] The album went to number one in the UK, spawning the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs", and number five in the US. To promote it, Bowie launched the Diamond Dogs Tour, visiting cities in North America between June and December 1974. Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production was filmed by Alan Yentob. The resulting documentary, Cracked Actor, featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the tour coincided with the singer's slide from heavy cocaine use into addiction, producing severe physical debilitation, paranoia and emotional problems.^[48] He later commented that the accompanying live album, David Live, ought to have been titled "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only In Theory". David Live nevertheless solidified Bowie's status as a superstar, charting at number two in the UK and number eight in the US. It also spawned a UK number ten hit in Bowie's cover of "Knock on Wood". After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul.^[49]