ABSTRACT

How can we go about improving the process of suburban land conversion? The broad objective of change is to cure or at least reduce the disadvantages of the present process, while at the same time not losing any or much of its advantages. If one seeks social change, one must state the nature of the change desired. Here the focus is on the social mechanisms which can produce change. There is little gain in stating goals which are wholly unattainable; the capacity or means of attaining goals is inevitably a factor in statement of the goals themselves. There has been a considerable amount of popular and semipopular writing about the shortcomings of modern suburbs, but rhetoric alone will produce few improvements. Many of the proposals for improvements strike the present writer as impractical in the sense that, even if adopted, they would not produce the results desired.