Divided We Sprawl:
A Digital History of Suburban Sprawl in America
In this grant proposal I will explore the prospect of using history for advocacy on the World Wide Web. I propose to create a website that covers the origins and development of suburban sprawl in America and the histories of the anti-sprawl and smart growth movements. This website will be as much an experiment in using history for advocacy as it will be an informative resource for those interested in the history of suburban sprawl.
Index
1. Background
The history of suburbanization is the history of modern America. The effects of suburbanization are unmistakable: small towns are crumbling, urban centers are atrophying, while the fringes of cities and rural areas are burgeoning. What does suburbanization mean to the American experience? Does it, as some believe, epitomize the "American Dream" – that is, a homogenous landscape where self-determined individuals own their own home and parcel of land? 1 Or does it represent an erosion of civic engagement, where residential areas are segregated from community, commercial, and production centers? These arguments are among the many interpretations of suburbanization as it concerns the national character of the United States.
These variations of interpretation reflect a national dialog about suburbanization that is becoming increasingly vocal and divisive. Books, articles, and websites about the subject are prevalent, and the issue is getting attention from political circles because of its escalating visibility and economic implications. This interest derives largely from the contentious disposition of the anti-sprawl and smart growth communities, groups that lament the consequences of suburbanization as it relates to pedestrian rights, dependence on the automobile, loss of public space, environmental degradation, infrastructure tax burdens, and so on. I believe that the anti-sprawl and smart growth communities are correct in their judgment that unplanned and under-planned suburbanization (otherwise known as "suburban sprawl") is seriously jeopardizing the great potential of American national character.
When I write of "national character," I optimistically suggest a diverse, pluralistic society that is aware of its differences but exists in enlightened harmony. 2 The harmony within which any society exists should be determined by an overarching sense of public purpose and civic engagement, where community-mindedness supercedes selfish individualism. A deficiency of these positive qualities erodes the fabric of a proactive and engaged populous. Unchecked growth of the suburbs, for example, is wearing away previous conceptions of public space, social interaction, and community-mindedness, which degrades the character of a mutually harmonious society.
Suburban sprawl is characterized by sprawling and decentralized development that necessities an extensive road system and a dependence on the automobile. Developers buy up enormous tracts of rural or otherwise "unused" land outside an urban area and arbitrarily partition the land into zones. These zones are designed to be isolated, single use pods: housing subdivisions, shopping centers, office parks, and civic institutions. The only connectors between zones are the miles of pavement necessary to handle suburban traffic. When construction is completed developers often repeat this process by "leapfrogging" the suburb and starting anew. When finished and populated, these sprawling developments lack the civic charm of a traditional town and the multiuse efficiency of urban centers. 3
It is important to note that my opinions on American national character and suburban sprawl are not wholly contingent on historical precedent (or a nostalgic affection for the traditional town or city). There was never a time during which American society was entirely harmonious in its conception of public purpose and civic engagement. Such utopian nostalgia is impossible to take seriously. Nevertheless, until the automobile was invented, society had to make do with a transportation infrastructure that required individuals to interact on a level that modern American society finds disagreeable. 4 Public space extended beyond the driveway, the street, the parking lot, and the office. Modern suburbanites, tethered as they are to their vehicles, spend an inordinate amount of time driving, thus reducing much opportunity for incidental public contact. Moreover, until the population moved to their insular lots within insular subdivisions, citizens valued public spaces not only for the opportunity for space and escapism, but for their communal charm and promise for civic interaction. 5
2. Using History for Advocacy
It is from this anti-sprawl and smart growth perspective that I want to develop a website that explores the origins and development of suburban sprawl in the United States and its cumulative effect on American national character. An important (indeed, vital) subtext I want to raise is the question of whether using history for advocacy can be done in a responsible manner. Using history for contemporary, advocacy purposes is a controversial subject, but I feel that advocacy requires a willingness to confront controversy – and so it follows that I must defend my position.
Considering the past when formulating personal and present-day viewpoints is a common practice among those who recognize the interconnectedness of events and continuity of time. Indeed, historical precedent should be taken into account when making basic assumptions about human experience. Except for the most radical existentialists and futurists, individuals tend to contemplate cause-and-effect, consequence, and precedent – all of which are history-conscious ideas.
But even Friedrich Nietzsche, arguably the first existentialist philosopher, found history to be essential to the human condition. 1 In his meditation, On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, Nietzsche severely rebukes the excessive use of history, concluding that its misuse and overuse brings about a repressive mindset; but he also notes that history taken in the right manner and proportion is essential to differentiating humans from animals, which live exclusively in the moment without regard to the past. I believe that balancing what Nietzsche calls the "historical" and the "unhistorical" is an important and sobering consideration when using history for modern use.
So then, when does history-consciousness become a liability? Extending Nietzsche's critique, the ease by which people can manipulate and misuse history tempts many to unduly skew historical data to their advantage. This is especially true for those who are so entrenched in an ideology that they use any means to support their cause, including intentional misrepresentation of information. History is an easily manipulable tool that can effectively boost a cause as well as ravage an opposition. Unfortunately there are those advocates who exploit past events and personalities in order to advance their cause. To this effect history and advocacy have a long and discordant relationship.
For instance, in developing Divided We Sprawl I want to avoid the "golden age" or "good ol' days" fallacy – that is, the belief that sometime in American past there was a period when the nation reached its cultural, social, economic, and political climax, only to gradually decline as time progressed and policies changed. Such a traditionalist and conservative notion tends not to be constructive for advocacy purposes, although it is abused by many advocates to justify their positions. For example, in Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, historian Michael A. Bellesiles demonstrates that pro-gun advocates like the National Rifle Association "meticulously" reconstruct history "to promote the necessity of a heavily armed American public," and do so in a way that unduly aggrandizes colonial and Post-Revolutionary America. 2
Conversely, in developing this website I want to avoid any gratuitous condemnation of the past, which tends to be equally unconstructive. American industrialists and technologists, for instance, often use the past as an ignominious touchstone for the Providence of industrial and technological progress. Consider automobile industrialist Henry Ford's infamous quote: "History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today." 3 Such contempt for the past ignores the interconnectedness of events and continuity of time, and is ultimately unsustainable. Indeed, Henry Ford, in an ironic departure from his earlier estrangement with history, went on to institute two notable historical museums: The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. 4
Historically-conscious advocates thus find themselves straddling a thin line between irresponsibly promoting an ideology and responsibly championing a cause. Irresponsible advocates exploit and misappropriate history, or even discount it as being worthwhile. Responsible advocates, on the other hand, use history meaningfully and endeavor not to let their passions misconstrue their interpretation of the past. Even so, responsible advocates should not subscribe to a wholly objective, value-free historiography. Such a position is untenable to the value-rich nature of advocacy. The diverse and subjective passions of the present-day certainly derive from the past, so it is difficult to believe that the past is limited to a purely objective interpretative framework. That is to say, responsible advocates ought to champion a cause by cautiously employing a relativistic perspective – one that supports their cause – but must not enter the dangerous realm of irresponsible ideology.
A segment of the history profession aggressively condemns this sort of relativism, and an even greater segment judges it a dubious approach to the study and interpretation of the past. The use of history for present-day social movements, especially, is questioned. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese is one of many historians who fear that relativism, and its related doctrine presentism, may cause historians to lose their "ability to write a history that rises above the party platform or position paper." 5 Such a perspective is important to consider because it raises the question of whether it is possible to use history for contemporary purposes while maintaining a reasonable degree of detachment.
3. Suburban Sprawl on the Web
Here is my central question: can history be used for advocacy responsibly? More specifically, can it be done on the World Wide Web? The subject matter for Divided We Sprawl – the history of suburban sprawl in America – will unavoidably inherit the trappings of an energized and contentious issue from our modern era. Admittedly, many advocates of the anti-sprawl and smart growth movements are guilty of both the "golden age" and "gratuitous condemnation" fallacies. Some use certain periods in American history to epitomize smart and sustainable growth, only to lament their gradual decline. Some are also quick to condemn the sequence of events that led up to our present-day situation without taking into consideration the underlying reasons for those events.
There is a host of literature that covers the history of suburban sprawl, mostly in a critical vein. 1 It is surprising, then, that the history of sprawl is woefully underrepresented on the Web. While anti-sprawl and smart growth websites are common, they focus more sharply on the present state of the issue and its future trajectory. 2 This underrepresentation is indicative of the present-mindedness of advocacy on the Web. Sociologists Steven Hick and John McNutt, who strongly advocate the use of the Internet for social justice, offer six categories of advocacy work that are currently done on the Web: "community networking," "electronic democracy," "electronic government relations," "virtual communities," "online social action organizing," and "civil disobedience." 3 Conspicuously absent from this list is electronic history. 4
Why is there a deficiency of history in advocacy on the Web? For one, the Internet is a relatively new technology, one that historians are only beginning to embrace as an effective form of scholarship. Another is that online advocates are primarily focused on the community building, networking, and resource dissemination aspects of the Internet, including email newsletters, electronic bulletin boards, online petitions, action reports, and so on. The incredible success to which advocates employ these aspects may weaken the chance for historical scholarship to become a major player in online advocacy. Indeed, why should "cyberactivists" need history to justify their cause when the Web allows them to proselytize and mobilize so successfully? 5 I say the need is absolute, and in its disregard for history the online advocacy community is losing an imperative component to progressive change: historical consciousness.
I draw much of my inspiration from labor historian James Green, who promotes the use of history to buttress "contemporary struggles for social justice." 6 In his book Taking History to Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements, Green gives personal and convincing examples of his own experience with what he calls "movement history." This form of historical scholarship examines past social movements and applies the findings to progressive advocacy and activism. Green is convinced that "historical narratives can do more than redeem the memory of past struggles; they can help people think of themselves as historical figures with crucial moral and political choices to make." 7 Contemporary social change, Green and I both agree, must be empowered by the past, just as it is empowered by individuals concerned about the future.
I relate to Green's passion for social justice and his use of history for progressive change. Suburban sprawl is a growing and unsustainable problem in modern society, so its historical origins and development must be made public. Without knowledge of the issues and recognition of the continued deterioration and diminished potential of American national character, suburbanites will continue to be ignorant or complacent about their lot. The distinction between "continued deterioration" and "diminished potential" is important to my argument that history for advocacy can be done with a reasonable degree of objectivity. I believe that American national character, as a consequence of sprawl, is at once deteriorating from its previous eminence and is not living up to its great potential.
Anti-sprawl and smart growth advocates find it worrisome that modern suburbanites tend to be unaware of or apathetic toward these issues. Now especially is a critical time to inform and educate: the environment is being destroyed; land-hungry developers are devastating open natural spaces; public spaces are becoming less common and appreciated; active civic engagement is all but extinct on the local level; pedestrian rights are being trounced upon; and the tax system is increasingly burdensome because of the massive infrastructure necessary to sustain poorly planned, low density developments. Most importantly, with the looming oil crisis and only a few initiatives that explore alternative fuel sources, the suburbs may eventually become extinct because of their absolute dependence on gasoline-powered automobiles. 8
The great historian Arnold J. Toynbee offered insight into how to challenge apathy toward critical issues: "Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice." 9 Following Toynbee's encouragement, my "ideal" is a nation that is aware of the historical, ecological, psychological, and economic ramifications of unchecked suburban sprawl; and my "intelligible plan" is a website that exposes these ramifications, offers ways to counteract them, and, most importantly, provides historical context to the anti-sprawl and smart growth movements. 10
It is imperative, then, that the history of suburban sprawl is assembled, studied, and made available to the general public. I argue that the World Wide Web is an ideal vehicle for such scholarship; it has a democratic and flexible nature that is advantageous to advocacy. No book, or even a collection of books could be as comprehensive as a website can be; and no museum, archive, or library can be so easily accessible to so many people. Also, the elasticity of the Web facilitates easy updating of a great deal of dynamic content, which is necessary for an advocacy website. And thankfully, active engagement with the public has already proven to be possible and desirable on the Web. Hick and McNutt call this active engagement "electronic advocacy," which means "the use of high technology to influence the decision-making process," and "the use of technology in an effort to support policy-change efforts." 11 By using established online advocacy techniques, the historical message of this website would be further enhanced and promulgated.
My intention for Divided We Sprawl is to use the World Wide Web to collect, preserve, and disseminate historical scholarship, teaching materials, and electronic documents that underscore the contemporary significance of the anti-sprawl and smart growth movements. By using the history of these movements (Green's "movement history") as well as an electronic documentary history of suburban sprawl, I hope to inform and inspire present-day social change. As media-business professor Larry Elin illustrates, cyberactivism is "not only an activity that takes place in virtual space, but also the chronological process or path that leads activists from the information highway to the streets." 12 In the end Divided We Sprawl will demonstrate that history can indeed be used for electronic advocacy in a proactive and responsible manner.
Divided We Sprawl will appeal to a diverse audience. Established anti-sprawl and smart growth advocates should find the movement histories particularly appealing, and may be interested in contributing their own histories on the subject. Those who are at least moderately interested in the affects of sprawl on American national character should find the definitions and explanations useful. Students of 19th and 20th century American social, cultural, and political history should find the movement histories revealing and the documentary evidence informative. Politicians, urban planners, and developers, who are admittedly more interested in the future trajectory of sprawl, should find the statistical trends and policy histories instructional to their planning and policy making. Given the significance of the content, I suspect this website will become a popular resource for many segments of American society.
4. Examples of History for Advocacy on the Web
While using history for electronic advocacy is underrepresented on the Web, it does exist. From my exploration of the Web, women's rights advocates are doing an admirable job employing "movement history" to inform and inspire advocates of today. For example, the National Women's History Project ( NWHP) is an exemplary website that extols the ongoing Women's Rights Movement in American history. Its stated mission is to "recognize and celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing information and educational materials and programs." 1
NWHP is a member-based organization, but anyone may peruse their website containing scores of information about women's history and modern social movements. Included in the site are e-newsletters that concern women's history; contemporary social justice alerts; a "resource catalog" where teachers and students may peruse relevant material; a "learning place" that offers various educational resources; and several portals to history-related and modern advocacy websites.
The NWHP website features a telling maxim that is familiar to the women's rights community: "By walking history’s pathways, we learn to step forward with confidence. The legacy of how others shaped society sparks our own longings to contribute. Everyone needs role models – footsteps enough like our own to inspire us." 2 Here is an unmistakable example of "movement history." This manner of history is important not only because it puts modern social justice movements in context with past movements, but also because it emphasizes the vitality and importance of the past to our understanding of the present and future.
Another impressive women's rights history website is the Worcester Women's History Project. The primary focus of the site is the history of the first National Woman's Rights Convention and the role of Worcester, MA in those efforts; but it is also quite open in its use of history for advocacy purposes. I am especially impressed with its mission statement, which emphasizes "the pursuit of equality and justice," "the discovery of connections between past and present, for the benefit of the future," "the research, documentation and celebration of women's history," and "the development of strong relationships with women's groups, historical organizations, and the community." 3 These are all encouraging and inspirational messages for those who wish to bring history and advocacy together on the Word Wide Web.
Telling stories about the past, James Green writes, "can become part of a popular effort to shape a different future… a future in which new crusades for equality, democracy, and social justice appear as extensions of nearly forgotten stories kept alive within movement culture by activists and historians working together." 4 Through the inspiration of Green's "movement history" and its successful application online by NWHP, Worcester Women's History Project, and other women's rights websites, I am confident that a digital history of suburban sprawl in America is possible and will become a successful example for using history online for advocacy.
5. Website Components
Divided We Sprawl will encompass four primary components: a scholarship section, an "archive" of material, a teaching resource section, and a section where visitors may contribute material. While the components taken individually could stand alone, each will be designed to supplement and support the others. This is arguably the foremost advantage of using the Web for this website as opposed to other means, such as a physical archive or museum. By using an interconnected system of hypertext, visitors will be able to traverse the website's components in a structured but unrestricted way. This will allow a progressive as well as recursive exploration through the issues, arguments, and materials presented, which, most importantly, engenders an active reader. 1
The scholarship component (identified by the action word "Learn") will feature hypertextual essays and online exhibitions about the history of suburban sprawl in America and the development of anti-sprawl and smart growth advocacy. Initially there will only be a few "seed" essays written by staff, but as outreach expands and the collections mature we will allow scholars to contribute their own scholarship. In this case, scholars may submit their essays, which will be reviewed, proofread, and published to the site at the discretion of the editor. Also included in this section will be a timeline of important events and personalities, a glossary of terms, a well annotated bibliography of sources, and a "portal" of hyperlinks to other online finding aids. Furthermore, the sections in the scholarship component will draw sources from the archive component, thus fulfilling the promise of fully documented scholarship.
Online exhibitions within the scholarship component will feature collections (or "galleries") of suburbanization and sprawl-related material. These digital collections are vital to my claim that history on the Web can be responsibly used for advocacy. Each will encompass a particular aspect of the history of sprawl and the movements surrounding it using narratives, images, statistics, and other documentary evidence to elucidate an argument. Each exhibit will be narrative in itself, allowing visitors to browse a systematically arranged and well captioned array of artifacts. Visitors will be encouraged to interact with the exhibit by exploring the objects themselves and following links to relevant material.
The teaching resource component (identified by the action word "Teach") will offer teachers and students pedagogical resources based on the content of the website. Lesson plans will be written so that teachers may introduce their students to the history of suburban sprawl and smart growth advocacy. More advanced lesson plans will be available for those teachers interested in using history on the Web for advocacy. Study guides will be written so that students may increase their knowledge of the issues surrounding suburban sprawl, with an emphasis on the origins and development of suburbanization. Like the scholarship component, the teaching resources will utilize material gleaned from other components of the website.
Because the subtext of the website is online advocacy, incorporated into the teaching resource component will be an advocacy outreach section. This section will offer a host of literature about the contemporary anti-sprawl and smart growth movements, including literature about New Urbanism, demographic trends, economic trends, pedestrian rights issues, dependence on the automobile, devastation of public space, historic preservation concerns, and environmental concerns. 2 My hope here is that advocacy will inspire activism. With any luck, after exploring the website and learning about the issues visitors will be sufficiently impassioned to support the anti-sprawl and smart growth movements, or at least to learn more about them. This section will provide the resources to people who wish to "teach" their newfound passions to others – such is the raison d'etre of grassroots advocacy.
The archive component (identified by the action word "Explore") will be a repository of sprawl-related digital objects, including past, current and proposed governmental legislation, court papers, cultural evidence, images, videos, animations, interviews and other relevant primary and secondary source material. An intuitive categorization scheme – most likely using a derivative of the Dublin Core metadata standards – will be established to organize the objects and facilitate browsing and searches. 3 The archive will undoubtedly be the most substantial component of the website, and would ideally be a clearinghouse for resources of this nature.
The contribution component (identified by the action word "Contribute") will be an area where visitors may submit a narrative or upload files that are relevant to suburbanization and suburban sprawl. Visitors will be asked to write and submit personal narratives, which are accounts or stories that pertain to their experiences with suburban sprawl. They may also contribute their opinions and thoughts about the issues, whether from an anti-sprawl, smart growth, pro-growth, or neutral perspective. An electronic bulletin board will also be available for those who want to share their thoughts, ask a question, discuss the issues, or network for advocacy purposes.
Visitors will also be able to upload and annotate documents and images, which will be added to the archive component after a vetting process. These materials may be any digitized objects that the user feels have particular relevance to suburban sprawl and the movements surrounding it. In sum, the contribution component will be significant especially to future researchers looking for firsthand accounts and public attitudes toward suburban sprawl – in effect, collecting today for the historians of tomorrow.
6. Work and Technical Plan
In the spirit of advocacy and grassroots community building this website will be developed within an open source software ( OSS) environment: specifically the LAMP environment, which comprises a Linux operating system, an Apache webserver, a MySQL database server, and PHP web scripting language. Each component of this environment is open source software, meaning their source code is either in the public domain or is distributed under an open source license. This license gives broad freedom to users who want to modify, improve, or otherwise redistribute the source code under certain restrictions. The methodology behind OSS is one of mutual interest and collaboration. This democratic access to source code is proving itself as a legitimate business model and effective means to improve and secure software programs. 1
One of the best examples of online history using the open source LAMP environment is Exploring and Collecting History Online (ECHO), a project of the Center for History and New Media (CHNM). ECHO effectively uses "the Internet to collect and present the history of science, technology, and industry," and in effect advocates the use of technology to facilitate the study of history. 2 Though not as advocacy-based as Divided We Sprawl will be, ECHO is an excellent illustration of how the World Wide Web can be utilized for historical purposes. Its use of the LAMP open source environment, especially, bespeaks a focus on economical yet powerful software and a keen awareness of the needs of the historical community.
The website itself will be written in XHTML using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The dual use of XHTML and CSS allows a complete separation of content and presentation, and is strongly recommended by the leading authority on Web-based technologies, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). 3 XHTML and CSS were designed specifically to standardize the increasingly chaotic state of Web markup and Web browsers. By separating content (the data) from the presentation (the style), the website will be easier to maintain and will conform to digital preservation standards. 4
Where dynamic content is necessary – e.g. search results, browse pages, online forms, and some complex presentation – PHP scripts will be embedded in the XHTML. The scripts will pull data from the MySQL database and dynamically write the data to XHTML format. PHP is a "server-side" technology, meaning all processing is done on the remote server, as opposed to a "client-side" technology (like JavaScript), where some processing is done by the users' Web browser. Server-side technology greatly increases the reliability and stability of an online application because every browser receives identical markup and does not have to rely on scripts that may be incompatible with different configurations.
All dynamic content will be stored in a MySQL database – one of the most popular open source database platforms in the world. The reasons why it is popular are because of its impressive speed and flexibility and its even more impressive cost: free (as with most open source software). The advantages of using a database as opposed to "flat" XHTML markup are tremendous: large amounts of data can be dynamically stored, organized, updated, and retrieved very quickly using Standard Query Language (SQL); using flat markup would require a prohibitive amount of time to perform simple tasks; without a database content searches would be terribly inefficient; and databases consolidate all data into a centralized, standardized form, whereas flat markup requires a considerable amount of files to store all data separately.
Because of this implementation of open source software and open standards, the technological architecture costs for Divided We Sprawl will be minor. The primary costs of the project will be twofold: developing content and writing code. The website components must be adequately developed before launching the website. The staff must prepare extensively for each component of the website. They must: research and write hypertextual essays and prepare a timeline, glossary and bibliography for the historical scholarship component; develop lesson plans and outreach literature for the teaching resources component; collect, digitize, markup, and organize material for the archive component; and prepare online forms and a database schema for the contribution component. The initial coding of the website using XHTML, CSS, PHP, and SQL will be time-consuming, but once a robust and extensible system is put into place the upkeep costs will be negligible.
Website staff will be divided into three groups: academic consultants; educational consultants; and technical consultants. The academic consultants will provide scholarly work and perform various research and outreach tasks. The educational consultants will be charged with creating lesson plans and advocacy outreach literature. The technical consultants will be responsible for developing a database schema, writing code, and designing the website. Consultant groups will work closely with one another in order to maximize the interoperability between website components. A principal investigator will oversee these relationships and establish partnerships with various history, advocacy, and technical professionals.