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Glen O’hara, Sprawl: A Compact History. By Robert Bruegmann., Twentieth Century British History, Volume 18, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 263–265, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwl029
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Britain's suburbs have very rarely attracted praise from anyone. One collection of essays from 1972, Civilia: The End of Suburban Man, started with these words: ‘sprawl is a polite word for … an almost unbelievable habit called by D.H. Lawrence doing dirt [sic] … creating the kind of environment that explains why last year three million housewives in Britain queued up at the surgery for sleeping pills, tranquilizers and anti-depressants’. Critics have blasted suburban life ever since the inter-war period, when ‘ribbon developments’ of semi-detached houses sprang up around almost all of Britain's large cities. These new suburbs apparently encouraged the wasteful use of the internal combustion engine; cut young mothers off from the support of their extended families; decreased social interaction and increased the amount of ‘bowling alone’; and reduced the amount of countryside that generations to follow could enjoy. It is this case Robert Bruegmann has now set out, if not to demolish, then at least to question, qualify and modify.
