Preface

Summary

As my subtitle suggests, The Bulldozer in the Countryside is about the relationship between two of the great stories of modern American history, the mass migration to the suburbs and the rise of the environmental movement. Each story has inspired a considerable scholarly literature. Yet scholars so far have not recognized the important connections between the two stories. The construction of tract-house subdivisions after World War II changed the nature of millions of acres of land, and a variety of people soon began to complain about the environmental costs of suburban development. The Bulldozer in the Countryside argues that the elaboration of an environmental critique of homebuilding in the period from 1945 to 1970 played an important role in the emergence of environmentalism.

When I started my research, however, I did not expect to write a book about the environmental movement: I simply saw a chance to help overcome a serious shortcoming in the literature of environmental history. The scholarship in the field has focused mainly on rural forms of production – farming, ranching, mining, lumbering, fishing, and hunting. Yet the enterprises of the metropolis also have had profound environmental consequences. Since I wanted to write about suburbia, I decided to focus on homebuilding. How had the environmental impact of residential development changed over time? In answering that question, I hoped to contribute to scholarly understanding of urban environmental history.