So Long City, Hello Suburbs!
Photo of women and kids from the National Archives of Canada Collection.
A music box on wheels
Broadcast Date: Sept. 6, 1949
Time flies on the jukebox bus. What used to be a "rather monotonous" trek has become a musical journey for the commuters of Selkirk, Man. In 1949, Selkirk suburbanites travel 34 kilometres by bus to their workplaces in Winnipeg. Much to their pleasure, the bus was recently equipped with 18 speakers, each having individual volume control. As heard in this CBC Radio clip, the inventor was once himself a tired commuter, and figured "passengers would rather listen to music."A music box on wheels
• The initial settlement of Glaswegian immigrants near Selkirk began in 1812. Selkirk was largely a farming community, with a strong pulp and paper industry. In the 1960s, employment in Selkirk took a downturn with layoffs at the Manitoba Rolling Mills plant.
• In 1970, the government rescinded Selkirk's status as a town.
• The commuters in this radio clip travelled daily to their jobs in downtown Winnipeg, which is just south of Selkirk.
• The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines a "bedroom community" as a residential area located near a large city, mainly inhabited by commuters.
• In his book Creeping Conformity, Richard Harris says an increase in car ownership after the Second World War, and the use of buses, made it possible for people to live much further from their workplaces.
• Harris says increased auto ownership after the war is the reason suburbs began spreading out further from cities. But he challenges the widely held belief that Canada's first suburbs emerged only after the Second World War.
• Harris argues that the rate of new community development post-First World War was on par with that during the era following 1945. Examples offered by 1913 are Toronto's well-to-do Lawrence Park and Earlscourt subdivision.
• Harris differentiates post-Second World War suburbs as being larger — to make room for cars.
• A 1963 CBC Radio clip reported that 45 per cent of all housing in Canada had been built since the Second World War.
• Actual references to the word "suburbs" didn't turn up in Canadian newspapers until the 1940s.
• An earlier account of the suburban concept was published in 1898 by British writer Ebenezer Howard.
• Howard called his plan "garden city." He defined the term as a utopian alternative to brutish city living, with low-density neighbourhoods and open green spaces.
• In 2004, there were 14 American towns, cities or villages named Garden City.
• American developer William Levitt has been considered the father of the modern suburb. In 1947, his planned community "Levittown" was born on Long Island, N.Y. Houses in Levittown went for about $8,000; a cost below average for the time.
• Levitt also built a second and third Levittown near Philadelphia and in New Jersey, and later became a professor of urbanism.
• CBC Radio did a profile of William Levitt when he died in 1994.
A music box on wheels
Medium: Radio
Program: CBC Radio News
Broadcast Date: Sept. 6, 1949
Guest(s): Andy Marnett, Irvin Moss
Host: Earl Cameron
Reporter: Norm McBain
Duration: 1:50
Photo: Winnipeg Transit
Last updated:
May 21, 2008
A music box on wheels.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: May 21, 2008.
[Page consulted on Feb. 16, 2012.]