ABSTRACT
A good number of the better-managed small firms survived into the thirties, but there were noticeably fewer small fish in the suburban sea. Thus much of the suburban growth of the interwar years contributed to daytime congestion in the central area of the capital and placed highly concentrated strains on the public transport system twice a day. Most of the new suburban industrial nodes were soon surrounded by streets of speculative builder housing, much of it of the cheap block type. Several distinct groups of suburbs can be distinguished. Some nucleated around railway stations or around an old village high street or green; others, utterly dependent on the motorbus or private car, clung only to a section of main road or a road junction. An old-established general building and civil engineering firm, John Laing and Sons, entered the speculative building field in 1930.
