Theorising suburban infrastructure

A framework for critical and comparative analysis

Bibliographic Data

ID8964014
AuthorsJean-Paul D Addie (0000-0002-6091-4301, University College London, corresponding author), Jean‐paul D Addie (Department of Geography University College London London WC1E 6BT)
Year2016
Volume41
Issue3
Pages273-285
Publication date2016-06-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/tran.12121
OpenAlexW2414385751
LanguageEN
Citations received22
References cited73

Suburban infrastructure holds a position of increasing geographic, political and conceptual importance in a rapidly urbanising world. However, the analytical significance of ‘suburban infrastructure’ risks becoming bogged down as a chaotic concept amid the maelstrom of contemporary peripheral urban growth and the explosion of interest in infrastructure in critical urban studies. This paper develops an open and flexible comparative theory of suburban infrastructure. I eschew concerns with definitional bounding to focus analytical attention on the relations between ‘the suburban’ (broadly considered) and multiple hard and soft infrastructures. These relations are captured in two ‘three‐dimensional’ dialectical triads: the first unpacks the modalities of infrastructure in, for and of suburbs; the second discloses the political economic processes (suburbanisation), lived experience (suburbanism) and dynamics of mediation internalised by particular suburban infrastructures. Bringing these conceptual frames together constructs a nine‐cell matrix that: (1) functions as a heuristic device providing conceptual clarity when discussing the suburbanity of infrastructures; (2) promotes comparative analysis across diverse global suburban contexts; and (3) develops tools to foreground the dialectical relations internalised in the concrete sociospatial modalities of suburban infrastructure. The paper shows that suburban infrastructure can only ever be partially suburban as a result of its co‐constituted and over‐determined production. I conclude by suggesting how the proposed approach may be mobilised to reimagine and reclaim suburban infrastructure as a crucial context and vital mechanism underpinning a progressive polycentric suburban spatial polity

Agency (philosophy · Conceptual framework · Context (archaeology · Critical infrastructure · Dialectic · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Epistemology · Geography · Political science · Politics · Regional science · Social science · Sociology · Urban politics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Urban Planning and Governance · Urban Studies · Urban Transport and Accessibility

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