THE SUBURBAN DISLOCATION
In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 314, p. 123-146
ISSN: 0002-7162
The suburbs appear as the shape of the egalitarian future. Emphasis upon status (graded ranks) appear archaic--'the new suburbanite appears to suffer, less from exclusion, than from a surfeit of inclusions.' Using P & P. Goodman's COMMUNITAS: MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD AND WAYS OF LIFE (1947) as a utopian description of subUr life the author discusses changes in subUr life under the headings of utopia & reality, limitations of prophesy, limitations between individual & soc behavior, the revolt against industrialism, life & work values, the subUr way of life, decentralization of living, loss of human differentiation, the role of the automobile in suburbia, the uneven distribution of leisure, the dilemma of professionals, suburbia's positive & negative aspects, subUr styles of life & thought, the aimless quality of subUr life, the future of leisure, & tensions of the subUr scene. It is concluded that 'Americans are almost too ready to abandon one thing for another, provided they are persuaded .. that the other is somehow `better'.... The range of such persuasion is not terribly wide, & it is wider ... in inessentials or externals .... More problematic is the persuasion itself. When mobilized for the planners' good ends it is frequently self-defeating because it almost inevitably uses the given means such as appeals to snobbery or to a fake efficiency. Yet the fear of this problem, ... seems to me ... to have intimidated thinking about what the good ends are. Thus, even if people could be persuaded, there is nothing to persuade them of.... Many Americans will soon discover the loss of Ur & subUr texture & might then be ready to do something, were a model available.' L. P. Chall.