England's interwar suburban landscapes: myth and reality

An investigation of suburbs created by private enterprise in interwar England reveals that their development was more problematic, and their physical characteristics were more diverse, than has been widely assumed. Differences between initial proposals for the development of an area and the reality that eventually emerged on the ground were widespread. Though architectural styles, building types and road patterns were generally distinct from those of the period before World War I, they varied considerably both within and between cities. Two main types of process affecting the landscape can be recognized. The first is systemic change, exemplified by the practically universal adoption, during the course of the 1920s, of the garden-suburb ethos and the creation of markedly different landscapes from those that existed previously. The second is adaptive change, involving adjustments, usually piecemeal, before, during and after developments, but conforming to the dominant period characteristics of the layouts; for example, reductions in plot sizes associated with increases in land values. Though conceptually fairly distinct, the two types of change may not in practice be separable.