Politics, by its nature, is a contentious arena. Suburbia, on the other hand, has long presented the image of a relatively serene, harmonious, and homogenous social context. Until recently little attention has been paid to whatever might be the distinctive qualities of the suburban political scene. Yet, as this collection of essays makes apparent, suburbia is as volatile a political environment as any other.

The suburban political sphere is truly a contested terrain. As the authors make clear, the political conflicts that have haunted the United States from its inception -- class inequalities, racial frictions, constraints on the democratic impulse -- loom large in the suburbia of today. The haven from social turmoil and strife that suburbia represented at mid-century increasingly appears to have been short-lived and, perhaps, even illusory. Political scientists, sociologists, and other researchers as well as concerned citizens are challenged to examine seriously the suburban political landscape. In this volume all will come away with a better understanding of the distinctive practical facets of the suburban political context, and all will have a better appreciation of the connections to our collective economic and social well-being.

Editors:
Marc L. Silver is Associate Professor of Sociology at Hofstra University. He is the author of Under Construction: Work and Alienation in the Building Trades (1986), and Exploring Social Issues (1992). His recent research focusses on housing policy and racial segregation in the suburbs.

Martin Melkonian has taught economics at Hofstra University for more than two decades, and has had extensive work experience as an economist. His areas of specialization include economic conversion, energy, and the Long Island economy. He coordinates the Hofstra University Public Policy Workshop on current international and economic issues.

Publication and Ordering Information:
Contested Terrain, Power, Politics, and Participation in Suburbia, edited by Marc L. Silver and Martin Melkonian, was prepared under the auspices of Hofstra University and published in 1995 by Greenwood Press. It is in their Contributions in Political Science series, No. 352. The 280-page volume is indexed and is available in a $65 hardcover edition (ISBN 0-313-29600-6: LC 94-25154). To order, contact Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881; (203) 226-3571.

Of related interest: Long Island: The Suburban Experience; Nassau County: From Rural Hinterland to Suburban Metropolis; and Suburbia Re-examined.

Contents:
Introduction, by Marc L. Silver and Martin Melkonian

Book Review:
"The 20 essays assembled in this collection derive from a Hofstra University conference that brought together a multidisciplinary group to explore various facets of the 'contested terrain' of contemporary suburban politics. According to the editors, suburban politics has not received the attention it merits, and it was with this in mind that the conference and volume were intended to open up to inquiry some of the 'distinctive qualities of the suburban political scene.'

"Indeed, at least among sociologists, suburbia has not received the kind of sustained attention that it was paid in the 1950s and 1960s . . .

"The essays on housing and race are the most intriguing. Andrew Wiese looks at the ways Long Island suburbs used redevelopment plans to engage in what he terms 'racial cleansing,' which is to say the orchestrated removal of the minority populations already in those communities. Ellen J. Skinner describes similar policies in White Plains. Jonathan L. Entin and Susan J. Siggelakis examine the use of zoning regulations to maintain segregated housing in, respectively, suburbs in Chicago and New Hampshire. A Scott Henderson focuses on collective action by white homeowners in the Buffalo area to prevent integration, while Peter H. Henderson chronicles the failed attempts to construct public housing developments in suburban Baltimore.

"Four chapters explore facets of suburban politics and open up some tantalizing opportunities for investigation. Given the importance of the politics of education in the suburbs, it is unfortunate that the only essay on this topic is Michael Minstrom's brief analysis of the attitudes of Long Islanders toward school funding reform. Paul H. Mattingly contends that the presumed nonpartisanship of much suburban politics is actually an ideological construct intended to convey to insiders and outsiders the image of civic concord, and he uses the Civic Conference in Leonia, New Jersey, to illustrate the difficulties of maintaining the efficacy of this ideology over time. With Bergen County, New Jersey, in mind, Michael J. Birkner contends that the boss politics of many American cities has a suburban counterpart. Finally, Carmine Scavo's study of citizen participation involves survey research of 69 central and edge cities in six states. Comparing the two types of cities, he concludes that central cities rely on governance rooted in the particulars of neighborhoods, whereas edge cities tend to operate in a more universalistic fashion. Beyond a number of methodological questions Scavo raises, the significance of his conclusions is underdeveloped.

"Issues related to risk analysis in the siting of nuclear power plants are discussed in Frank B. Burggraff's treatment of the Skunkworks project planned for rural upstate New York and in Marge Harrison's overview of the checkered history of the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island.

"As this overview suggests, Contested Terrain is a rather wide ranging and uneven collection of conference papers." --Peter Kivisto, Augustana College, Social Forces, 75 (September 1996): 376-77

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