Fenced Off: The Suburbanization of American Politics. By Juliet F. Gainsborough. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001. 191p. $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Extract

By the 1970s—and, some might argue, a decade earlier—America had shed its urban persona and had metamorphosed into a suburban nation. Yet in comparison with research done on cities and urban politics, little work had focused on this transition and ensuing suburban politics. Juliet Gainsborough's work seeks to reduce this deficiency by examining the suburban movement, its motivations, and their linkage to political behavior. Thankfully moving beyond previous discussions of mortgages and work commutes, the author narrows the focus of this short monograph to how living in the suburbs affects voter choice and policy preferences by altering the decision-making calculus (p. 8).