Conclusion: Post-suburban Worlds?

Abstract

At the beginning of this book, we attempted to distinguish ‘post-suburbia’, asking whether it signalled a new era, a new settlement space or new actors and forces in suburban development. Now after the completion of the journey through many places, we might suggest that the answer is a bit of each to some extent. What emerged at the outset and in the subsequent chapters was that post-suburbia does not embody a clean break with suburbanization. We see the primary value of the term in focusing attention on the multi-faceted, and multi-scalar, nature of transformations affecting metropolises. In this conclusion chapter, we deepen the discussion of the prefix of ‘post-’ in the concept of post-suburbia and ask, in what sense is there a post-suburban world?