Organization of Suburban Areas

THE growth of American cities and towns within the past 20 years has been a subject of considerable interest to sociologists, municipal planners, city managers, city governments, and operators of municipal facilities. There is, however, another area of growth that warrants even closer scrutiny in the study of human population trends and living patterns. Although cities and towns are growing rapidly, the fringe areas immediately adjacent to their corporate limits, but outside them, are increasing in size and density even more rapidly. The relative rate of increase is in favor of the fringe area in spite of the reductions made in it by annexations to city and town. Although cities and towns grow by annexing fringe areas, the fringe areas do not, conversely, annex city limits but, instead, extend farther into the rural land. The city grows by absorbing the fringe. The fringe grows by extending into the rural. There are created, then, three distinct bands of habitation: the urban, the fringe, and the rural. The U.S. Census Bureau