| Background
Suburbs are an old idea, at least by American standards of age. As far back as the early 19th century, middle and upper class Americans were already adding communities to the cities whose inner districts they perceived as chaotic, dirty, and increasingly heterogeneous. While uncharacteristic at first, such additions developed ubiquitously as the Gilded Age steamed into the 20th century, and cities were becoming dirtier and more chaotic faster than ever before. By this time, however, public transit systems and roads had at last improved enough to to make commuting to the city a recommendable alternative to living there. Early 20th century advertisements for packaged districts, the successor to urban additions and the precursor to modern suburbs, attempted to sell city dwellers on the idea that homeownership and utopia could be achieved by the same purchase. Whereas the city was frenzied, filthy, and increasingly foreign, the packaged district promised a controlled environment of tranquility, dependable utilities, and shared cultural values. The packaged district (and eventually the suburb) was in this way commodified as the cultural incarnation of its topographical situation--serene country living with the amenities of urban technology. However, as suburbs became more synonymous with the American dream, they became increasingly vulnerable to social criticism. The cultural upheavals of the 1960s invigorated these attacks, as many intellectuals and artists, mostly from the political left, began to portray the suburbs as prepackaged districts of conformity, superficiality, and exclusivity. In this way, the perceived character of the suburb slowly started to change -- what was once advertised as the ideal setting for a meaningful life was now becoming a commercialized landscape of allegedly empty affluence. |
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