The explosive growth of American suburbs following World War II promised not only a new place to live but a new way of life, one away from the crime and crowds of the city. Yet, by the 1970s, the expected security of suburban life gave way to a sense of endangerment. Perceived, and sometimes material, threats from burglars, kidnappers, mallrats, toxic waste, and even the occult challenged assumptions about safe streets, pristine parks, and the sanctity of the home itself. In Neighborhood of Fear, Kyle Riismandel examines how suburbanites responded to this crisis by attempting to take control of the landscape and reaffirm their cultural authority.
An increasing sense of criminal and environmental threats, Riismandel explains, coincided with the rise of cable television, VCRs, Dungeons & Dragons, and video games, rendering the suburban household susceptible to moral corruption and physical danger. Terrified in almost equal measure by heavy metal music, the Love Canal disaster, and the supposed kidnapping epidemic implied by the abduction of Adam Walsh, residents installed alarm systems, patrolled neighborhoods, built gated communities, cried "Not in my backyard!," and set strict boundaries on behavior within their homes. Riismandel explains how this movement toward self-protection reaffirmed the primacy of suburban family values and expanded their parochial power while further marginalizing cities and communities of color, a process that facilitated and was facilitated by the politics of the Reagan revolution and New Right.
A novel look at how Americans imagined, traversed, and regulated suburban space in the last quarter of the twentieth century, Neighborhood of Fear shows how the preferences of the suburban middle class became central to the cultural values of the nation and fueled the continued growth of suburban political power.
“Columbus and QUBE: Democracy, Interactive Cable Systems, and the Digital Town Square in the Early 1980s,” MediaCommons, June 14, 2019.
“Suburban Youth Culture” and “Mall Rats.” Encyclopedia of Youth Cultures. Ed. Simon J. Bronner. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2015.
“Parents Music Resource Center,” Encyclopedia of American Reform Movements, Eds. John R. McKivigan and Heather L. Kaufman. New York: Facts on File, forthcoming.
“Suburbs,” with Simon J. Bronner. Encyclopedia of American Folklife. Ed. Simon J. Bronner. New York: M.E. Sharpe, August 2006.
Conferences and Invited Presentations
Panelist, “That Old Devil Rumor: Save the Children, Satanic Panic, and QAnon,” American historical association, january 2022.
“Neighborhood of fear: productive victimization and suburban power past and present,” Albert dorman honors college, colloquium, new jersey institute of technology, december 9, 2020.
“Living in the Material World: Bridging the Analog/Digital Divide in Bulletin Board System Communities in the 1980s,” The Digital as Material: Encounters with Space, Physicality, and Objects in Computer History, Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society part of the Society for the History of Technology Conference, October 27, 2019 – Accepted but could not present due to family emergency.
Panelist, Constitution Day, NJIT, September 17, 2019.Presenter, Teach-In, “White Backlash in Postwar America,” Federated History Department, Rutgers-Newark/NJIT, February 28, 2017.
“Transparency and Teaching: Building and Maintaining Student Trust,” Lunch at ITE, Institute for Teaching Excellence, NJIT, November 15, 2016.Panelist, “Converged Learning Success Stories: a Panel Discussion,” Institute for Teaching Excellence, NJIT, May 18, 2016.
“Sounds of the City in Crisis: Hip-Hop in the Postwar South Bronx,” Albright College, Department of History, February 9, 2016.
“The University in the Neo-Liberal City: Re-Thinking Civic Engagement and Service Learning in Newark,” Presentation to the Albert Dorman Honors College, NJIT, October 1, 2015.
“'Fear Stalks the Streets': Crime and the Making of the Carceral Suburb in 1980s America," Seton Hall University, Department of History, February 4, 2015.
Panelist, “A New Public Square: The Economics of Politics and Today’s Social Media,” The Transforming Horizon: A Flat World Perspective for Business Today, NJIT, School of Management Fourth Annual Business Conference, November 20, 2014.
Chair, “Popular Culture and the Making and Remaking of the American City,” Urban History Association Conference, October 28, 2012.
Commenter, “Vietnam Represented: Image, Sound, and Word.” Rutgers-Newark/NJIT Graduate Student History Conference, March 29, 2012.
“Passive Intervention: The V-Chip as Suburban Media Regulation,” United States Intellectual History Conference, November 17, 2011.
“Punks, Muggers, and Vigilantes: Producing Urban Crime in the 1970s,” Accepted for Presentation, Urban History Association, October 2010.
“New Trouble in River City: Arcades and the Regulation of Teens in Suburban Public Space,” American Studies Association Conference, November 2009.
“Know Your Enemy: Understanding, Organizing, and Regulating Suburban Criminals in the 1990s,” National Center for Suburban Studies Conference, The Diverse Suburb: History, Politics, and Prospects, October 2009.
“Fear Stalks the Streets: Discourses of Crime in 1980s Suburban America,” George Washington University Urban Studies Seminar, April 2009.
“Parental Advisory—Explicit Lyrics: The Culture Wars Construct the Suburbs in the 1980s,” American Studies Association Conference, October 2008. Organized panel – “At the Crossroads of Representation and Use: Negotiating Conflict and Distinction on the Postwar Sub/Urban Landscape.”
“Popular Culture and the Turn Against Nuclear Power: The China Syndrome and Three Mile Island,” Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Conference, October 2006.