The Role of Suburbanites in Shaping America

At the end of the Second World War, America experienced immense economic prosperity. As other countries affected by the war attempted to recover and put the pieces of their country back together, America emerged with a booming economy, in large part due to war-time industry profits. As a direct result of this new-found prosperity, many American families elected to move out of their inner-city homes to more spacious, lucrative houses on the outskirts of the city. People who chose such a path and commuted to work, were known as "suburbanites", and though they may not have known it, they contributed immensely to the formation of the modern American society.

Though suburbs weren't a new idea and had been around since the early nineteenth century in America, they became incredibly popular in the post-1945 era. The increase in suburban living was largely attributed to a few factors: new roads and highways, increased mortgage lending, the baby boom, and tax incentives that encouraged people to leave the city.

After World War II, the Veterans Administration offered low interest rate home mortgages to war veterans, in an effort to stimulate the economy and help them re-assimilate into their civilian lives. Soon after, the Federal Housing Administration followed suit, and began offering comparable loans to the general public, of two to three percent annual interest rate. These measures provided a strong economic incentive to "upgrade" their lives and move to the flourishing suburbs. Though people of all backgrounds flocked to the suburbs, the most common demographic was that of the white, middle-class male. Additionally, according to renowned sociologist Herbert Gans, the typical demographic of a suburbanite also entailed some college education, at least two children, and the parents were third or fourth generation Americans. The men typically would have white collar careers, and the women tended to be homemakers.

As suburbanites and other Americans achieved prosperity, they were also afforded with more leisure time that they often dedicated towards home improvement and restoration, watching television, and holding family barbecues. In fact, the backyard barbecue became symbolic of the typical suburbanite. With suburbia, families began to live more inward and independently from the community, rather than remaining social through churches and other social institutions. Additionally, as a further sign of prosperity, it became a "necessity" for families to have at least two automobiles: one for the husband to commute to work in, and the other for the wife to take care of daily errands.

As cars began to gradually become the center of American culture, services were created to fulfill the "person on the move," such as drive-thru restaurants, drive-in movie theaters, et al. Moreover, as interstate and highway systems became more sophisticated, the men gradually began to work further and further way from their homes. It wasn't until the 1980s that adequate employment opportunities were present in the suburbs, and before, a majority of the jobs were centralized in the city.

As the middle and upper class families began to move away from the city to live in the suburbs, the cities became increasingly run-down, as poorer families were left to live in the inner-city. As a result of the high poverty, cities became crime-ridden and suburbanites were neglectful towards the cities. Those who moved to the suburbs tried to establish their own independent communities and towns apart from the city, with their own city governments, et al. Throughout the 1980s, and even today, many cities were overridden with social problems such as crime, addiction, and poverty.

When racial tensions eased in the 1980s, there was a mass exodus of middle-class African-Americans who left their inner-city homes for a better life in the suburbs. However, the number of middle-class African-Americans was distinctly disproportionate from the number of white, middle-class Americans.