“It shows that the economics of the suburbs are out of phase with the original purpose of the suburbs,” said Robert Fishman, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan and the author of “Bourgeois Utopias” (Basic Books, 1989), a history of suburban growth.

That purpose was to take women and children out of the “morally corrupt environment” of rough industrial cities, Professor Fishman said. “It’s still to an amazing degree the cultural assumption that this green, open environment is a better place to raise children.”

> From the NYTimes article “Great haven for families, but don’t bring children” about a town trying to restrict the number of new families through zoning.

Author: Rob