The world’s first suburb was probably Brooklyn, New York, founded as a village in 1834 just across the river from Manhattan, an easy commute by ferry, yet set in a rustic, rural environment. By 1860,...

The world’s first suburb was probably Brooklyn, New York, founded as a village in 1834 just across the river from Manhattan, an easy commute by ferry, yet set in a rustic, rural environment. By 1860, this suburb had been incorporated into a city, and in 1898, Brooklyn voted to become a borough of New York. Today Brooklyn is the fourth most populous “city” in the United States, with 2.5 million residents (Jackson, 1987; Snyder-Grenier, 2004).