Highways are not the issue

The title of the post says it all:  How much did highways really matter for suburbanization?

The answer is not much. Of course suburbanization is not dependent on cars or highways. The Romans had "suburbs" and they used carts and asses. Hey -- "sub-urb" is even a Latin word! England had 'suburbs' based on horse-drawn buses and then trains. Cities have been growing for thousands of years and today's "'suburb' is often tomorrow's in-city neighborhood.

The issue is NOT and never has been suburbanization per se. The issue is purely auto-dependent suburbs which are designed to require cars, and do not accommodate walkers much less buses and bicyclists. The problem is the creation of residential areas in which children, old people (past the ages of driving) and poorer people are isolated and dependent on others to drive them. That is just one example of what is wrong with purely auto-dependent suburbs. The shape of city growth is a critical socio-economic issue and it is totally mis-characterized for an unstated but, to me, obvious and very political purpose.  

Let's put it another way: there is nothing wrong with building "suburbs" — places beyond the boundary of current urban development — which offer people a variety of ways — cars, buses, trains, bikes and feet — to get to and around them.