Streetcar Suburbs
A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Early suburbs were served by horsecars, but by the late 19th century cable cars and electric streetcars, or trams, were used, allowing residences to be built further away from the urban core of a city. Streetcar suburbs, usually called additions or extensions at the time, were the forerunner of today's suburbs in the United States and Canada.
Although most closely associated with the electric streetcar, the term can be used for any suburb originally built with streetcar-based transit in mind, thus some streetcar suburbs date from the early 19th century. As such, the term is general and one development called a streetcar suburb may vary greatly from others. However, some concepts are generally present in streetcar suburbs, such as straight (often gridiron) street plans and relatively narrow lots.
Read more about Streetcar Suburbs: Railroad Suburbs, Horsecar and Cable Car Suburbs, Development of Streetcar Suburbs, Modern Streetcar Suburbs, Features, Australasia, Old World, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word suburbs:
“Everywhere—all over Africa and South America ... you see these suburbs springing up. They represent the optimum of what people want. There’s a certain sort of logic leading towards these immaculate suburbs. And they’re terrifying, because they are the death of the soul.... This is the prison this planet is being turned into.”
—J.G. (James Graham)