Suburban homes

Suburban homes are central to scholarship on house and home across diverse disciplines. This article explains and illustrates this pivotal position of suburban homes in research on home. It traces their origins in the late nineteenth century, connections to a public–private divide, and an ethos of being closer to nature. In the twentieth century, suburban houses became increasingly prevalent as the material form in which home is made across diverse parts of the world. The ideological referents of the suburban home – nuclear family, gendered division of labour, middle-class respectability – have not significantly altered in its 150-year history, though critiques of the suburban home as ideal home are becoming more voluminous.