As the United States has been transformed into a "Suburban Nation" over the past fifty years, the notion of "sprawl" has emerged to describe the unique physical forms that have characterized suburban development. It has also assumed a variety of cultural and political meanings. Employed by politicians, policy makers, academics, activists, and others, “sprawl” has been ubiquitous in discussions of metropolitan development. In spite of its ubiquity (or perhaps because of it) the deeper cultural, ecological, political, and economic portents of our sprawled life are rarely subject to interrogation. We are soliciting essays to incorporate into an edited volume that will seek to expand the understanding of sprawl through multiple dimensions via an interdisciplinary approach.

Themes may include (but certainly are not limited to) the following topics:

• The evolution of sprawl in economic, political, cultural, and policy-making contexts
• The relationship between sprawl, politics, and planning
• Subsidies and incentives that encourage sprawl
• Sprawl and "White Flight"
• Sprawl and the production of gender
• Race/Class segregation
• The changing racial dynamics of suburbia
• Searching for the "American Dream"
• Ecological/environmental context of sprawl
• Sprawl and justice
• The culture of suburbia (malls, cul de sacs, and corporatization)
• Children and sprawl
• Civic and community activism, political action
• The relationship between the global and the local
• The globalization of sprawl
• The discourse surrounding "growth."
• The promise or peril of the New Urbanism
• Efforts at combating sprawl

We seek case studies, theoretical analyses, historical narratives, comparative studies, as well as cultural, social and economic studies. Please submit a brief abstract and vita by September 15th to one of the editors.

For more information, please contact:
Matt Lindstrom, Ph. D.
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Siena College
515 Loudon Rd.
Loudonville, NY 12211
518 785 7054 phone
518 782 6548 fax
mlindstrom@siena.edu

Or