SUBURBANIZATION describes the general trend of city dwellers to move from the city into residential areas in ever-growing concentric circles away from the city's core.
Postwar suburbanization was the result of a complex web of governmental and economic conditions that scholars have yet to adequately explore. One of the most important of these factors is also one of the most overlooked: the anxiety-filled onset of the Cold War.
Though frequently cited in passing as an influence on certain aspects of suburbanization, the Cold War is rarely given the serious and microscopic treatment it deserves. It is understandable why historians and urbanists would shy away from a topic as complex as the war, about which much has been written outside a suburban context.