Farm Town to Suburb is a comprehensive history of the Town of Weston, with particular emphasis on the years 1830-2020. Extensively documented and richly illustrated, the book chronicles the economic, social and political evolution of the town from rural agricultural community to modern Boston suburb. The first nine chapters are organized by time period and the remaining twenty-one focus on geographical areas. With Farm Town to Suburb as a guide, readers of today can connect with the past and enrich the present by looking at the development of their own streets and neighborhoods. Settled by Puritan farmers and located along the important Boston Post Road, Weston enjoyed a brief commercial heyday before railroads replaced stagecoaches in the 1840s. While lacking water power for large mills, the town did have one major industry, the prestigious Hook & Hastings Company, makers of some of the nation's finest church and concert hall organs. After the Civil War, city dwellers who fancied the farm landscape found the town close enough to Boston for convenient commuting to country estates. At the turn of the century, Weston was proclaimed "The Lenox of the East." Farm Town to Suburb tells the story of estate owners, their mansions and gardens, and a way of life now gone by. Corn fields and dairy cows were a common sight until after World War II, when the last farms were sold for development. As Weston's population burgeoned, leaders struggled to keep up with growth and at the same time preserve rural character through rezoning and the purchase of conservation land. Farm Town to Suburb includes over 1000 photographs, maps and illustrations from both public and private collections, most of which have never before been published. It offers a fascinating perspective on the town and will appeal to anyone with an interest in the history not only of Weston but also of the greater Boston area.

2004 winner of the Robert E. Park Book Award from the Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS) of the American Sociological Association Although the death of the small town has been predicted for decades, during the 1990s the population of rural America actually increased by more than three million people. In this book, Sonya Salamon explores these rural newcomers and the impact they have on the social relationships, public spaces, and community resources of small town America. Salamon draws on richly detailed ethnographic studies of six small towns in central Illinois, including a town with upscale subdivisions that lured wealthy professionals as well as towns whose agribusinesses drew working-class Mexicano migrants and immigrants. She finds that regardless of the class or ethnicity of the newcomers, if their social status differs relative to that of oldtimers, their effect on a town has been the same: suburbanization that erodes the close-knit small town community, with especially severe consequences for small town youth. To successfully combat the homogenization of the heartland, Salamon argues, newcomers must work with oldtimers so that together they sustain the vital aspects of community life and identity that first drew them to small towns. An illustration of the recent revitalization of interest in the small town, Salamon's work provides a significant addition to the growing literature on the subject. Social scientists, sociologists, policymakers, and urban planners will appreciate this important contribution to the ongoing discussion of social capital and the transformation in the study and definition of communities.

The fully expanded, updated, and freshly designed second edition of the most comprehensive and widely acclaimed guide to domestic architecture: in print since its original publication in 1984, and acknowledged everywhere as the unmatched, essential guide to American houses. This revised edition includes a section on neighborhoods; expanded and completely new categories of house styles with photos and descriptions of each; an appendix on "Approaches to Construction in the 20th and 21st Centuries"; an expanded bibliography; and 600 new photographs and line drawings.

How is it that nearly 90 percent of the Texan population currently lives in metropolitan regions, but many Texans still embrace and promote a vision of their state’s nineteenth-century rural identity? This is one of the questions the editors and contributors to Lone Star Suburbs confront. One answer, they contend, may be the long shadow cast by a Texas myth that has served the dominant culture while marginalizing those on the fringes. Another may be the criticism suburbia has endured for undermining the very romantic individuality that the Texas myth celebrates. From the 1950s to the present, cultural critics have derided suburbs as landscapes of sameness and conformity. Only recently have historians begun to document the multidimensional industrial and ethnic aspects of suburban life as well as the development of multifamily housing, services, and leisure facilities. In Lone Star Suburbs, urban historian Paul J. P. Sandul, Texas historian M. Scott Sosebee, and ten contributors move the discussion of suburbia well beyond the stereotype of endless blocks of white middle-class neighborhoods and fill a gap in our knowledge of the Lone Star State. This collection supports the claim that Texas is not only primarily suburban but also the most representative example of this urban form in the United States. Essays consider transportation infrastructure, urban planning, and professional sports as they relate to the suburban ideal; the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos in Texas metropolitan areas; and the environmental consequences of suburbanization in the state. Texas is no longer the bastion of rural life in the United States but now—for better or worse—represents the leading edge of suburban living. This important book offers a first step in coming to grips with that reality.