Continuity and change in the restless urban landscape

Recent inquiry in urban studies highlights the dynamic restructuring of urb an areas, with new elements of the landscape taken as reflections of sweepi ng economic and sociocultural change. American cities are portrayed as "gal actic" and "restless" manifestations of global and national industrial rest ructuring, widening income inequality, demographic shifts, and the cultural sensibilities of new class formations. Yet the persistence of residential segregation and suburban development processes provide reminders of the his torical continuity of American urban form, This paper critically evaluates continuity and change in the urban landscape, drawing on feminist urban res earch and theories of residential differentiation to analyze changes in spa tial segregation among families and households. I apply the methods of the classical factorial ecology literature to a special census tabulation that controls for tract boundary changes between 1980 and 1990. The analysis foc uses on Minneapolis-St. Paul, which exemplifies processes of industrial res tructuring and suburban development and an unusually high rate of female la bor force participation. Results indicate that urban demographic trends hav e inscribed increasingly complex patterns of neighborhood segregation. The delayed childbearing, increased employment, and high household incomes of m arried women of the baby boom generation have altered the 1960s "family sta tus" construct. I offer a theory of the "public household" to illuminate th is transformation, which entails an erosion of the boundaries between marke ts and family life as households confront the contradictions of suburban bu ilt environments. The foundations of residential differentiation display re markable continuity, and the public household is rooted in long-term demogr aphic trends, widening inequality, and increasing consumption standards dri ven by postwar suburbanization and housing policy. Ultimately, restlessness in the urban landscape is a story of dynamic stability, as turbulent socia l and institutional change reflects the struggles of workers and families a djusting to the imperatives of life in a low-density urban environment.