The Modern American Metropolis: A Documentary Reader

The Modern American Metropolis: A Documentary Reader introduces the history of cities and suburbs in the United States through a collection of original source materials that explore the centrality of urban change to the American experience. Readers are encouraged to consider how a wide range of people, including themselves, have related to the built environment as they explore key questions and debates in urban studies. Featuring more than 60 primary sources, ranging from correspondence and photographs to marketing tools and government documents, this collection highlights the sweeping changes in metropolitan development over the past 150 years. Topics include infrastructure development, consumer culture, electoral politics, environmental change, battles over rights, the role of technology, and the contested meaning of citizenship. Collectively, these materials reveal how the history of cities and suburbs is not limited to buildings, innovation, and politics—and not confined to municipal boundaries. The Modern American Metropolis enables readers to view the whole of modern U.S. history as an essentially “metropolitan” history.

David M. P. Freund is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of the award–winning Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (2007) and contributor to numerous educational, documentary, and public policy projects.