Rockin’ the ‘burbs

Photo Credit: London Transport Museum

“It is idle to dream of confining the outskirts of London to predefined limits, the question is rather how should they expand without becoming shoddy and characterless.”

—The Times, 13 September 1926

You thought you’d left them behind, didn’t you? Alas, even in London, the leering threat of suburbia looms large beyond the limits of the Ring Road and Circle Line.  The stamped-out identi-homes, the scissor-trimmed lawns, the be-sweater-setted wives: it’s no wonder suburbanites are painted often depicted living on a diet of Prozac and Chardonnay.

And dissing the ‘burbs is decidedly de rigueur these days.  TV programmes such as Desperate Housewives and Weeds give a darkly comical take on the white wash, while films like Revolutionary Road and Fish Tank look a little more gravely at the social problems out in the boonies.  That said, the London Transport Museum (LTM) is currently hosting an exhibition that, rather than deriding suburbanites, describes how they are–and have been for the last couple hundred years–an integral part of London.  Not only have the suburbs have enabled London’s economy but, perhaps more importantly, they have helped to define the identity of both the city and its dwellers as a place and people of consumerism.

The first artistically-designed suburb was Bedford Park, built in the 1870s.  Its main selling point to Londoners was the idea that they could leave a dreamy double life that had one foot in the country, and the other in the City.  In fact, one promotional poster (see above) for the development depicted a man half in the black-and-white mayhem of The Big Smoke, and half in the green-and-pink paradise of suburbia.  The poster schemes appealed to the ephemerally seductive idea of “having it all”.

In fact, according to the exhibition, the consumerism promoted by suburban planners was also part of a scheme to up London’s transport revenue.  Suburbs were promoted with marketing campaigns in tubes, buses, and trams which advocated season tickets to commuters as the key to a fantasy life in suburbia while still raking in the cash out in Farringdon/Bank/Mooregate.  The way the LTM tells it, suburban expansion was entirely driven (so to speak) by London’s various railway services in order to cash in on a population moving out.

“Always the same.  Long, long rows of little semi-detached houses.”

–George Orwell, Coming up for Air, 1938

London’s suburbs stopped expanding–not surprisingly–at the beginning of WWII.  Post-war, a greenbelt initiative was established and, according to the LTM, expansion cannot continue.  The museum has a variety of student-made videos that document suburban life for Britain’s youth and the slant is quite cynical.  The individuals interviewed either describe their less-than-pleased outlook or speak exclusively about how much shopping one can do on the high street.

As a rather chauvinistic city-slicker doing a work experience stint in Osterley, I fully understood these less-than-glowing testimonials.  I would rather live in a mouldy basement apartment than 40 minutes outside of the city.  When it comes to London, you gotta go big or go home.  And when “home” is halfway around the world, going big is the only answer.

Suburbia at the London Transport Museum is on until 31 March.