Andydandy.

hillary: single ladies??

but that’s not really the case

the suburbs are extremely different and in a category of their own because their existence is predicated on the wealthier part of the working class trying to put as much physical distance between them and the centers of industry where they actually do their work as possible, creating as much of a division between work/life and public/private space as possible (and bridging the gap increasingly using cars rather than public transportation, to further isolate people)

not to mention the fact that white people wanted to get away from black people and immigrants as they were increasingly migrating in northern cities and white people could use their greater material wealth and racist housing subsidies in their favor to escape city life while maintaining employment 

There’s no need for the graduation really. You could actually have dense urban areas that just sort of stop, and from there on it’s countryside, because the city is as big as it needs to be and internally houses and provides for it’s whole living and working population. The desire for shoulder to shoulder yet unwalkable suburban sprawl is a desire of capital, as a way to commidify and capitalize on the land surrounding a city without regard for efficiency or sustainability of land use.

I remember I saw a post on here once about how making the primary mode of transportation cars was really insidiously capitalist and helped maintain an individualist ethos by making transportation an individual investment and responsibility, and also by isolating people for the time that they’re commuting. I think that can be expanded to explain the suburbs in general. 

it’s worth considering that beyond the way that suburbs and cars accommodate capital by turning people’s basic human needs (transportation and shelter) into marketable private goods, they also serve a purpose of spreading people out and impeding collective action both on the psychological scale (because people have no sense that their own welfare is tied up with the public good) and on the physical scale– where are people supposed to organize? are they supposed to drive to mass demonstrations? will there be parking?