1950s Suburbia: Portrait of the American Suburbs (2/2) (1957)

1957 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UZCOU4?ie=UTF8&tag=doc06-20&link... Watch the full film: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-suburbs-1957.html

In the United States, since the 18th century urban areas have often grown faster than city boundaries. Until the 1900s, new neighborhoods usually sought or accepted annexation to the central city to obtain city services. In the 20th century, however, many suburban areas began to see independence from the central city as an asset. In some cases, white suburbanites saw self-government as a means to keep out people who could not afford the added suburban property maintenance costs not needed in city living. Federal subsidies for suburban development accelerated this process as did the practice of redlining by banks and other lending institutions. Cleveland, Ohio is typical of many American central cities; its municipal borders have changed little since 1922, even though the Cleveland urbanized area has grown many times over. Several layers of suburban municipalities now surround cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, San Francisco, Sacramento, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.

While suburbs had originated far earlier; the suburban population in North America exploded during the post-World War II economic expansion. Returning veterans wishing to start a settled life moved en masse to the suburbs. Levittown developed as a major prototype of mass-produced housing. At the same time, African Americans were rapidly moving north for better jobs and educational opportunities than were available to them in the segregated South. Their arrival in Northern cities en masses -- in addition to race riots in several large cities such as Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia -- further stimulated white suburban migration.

De-investment in American cities was rampant during the time of mass suburbanization. Aging cities were left to fall apart, during the time when the country was experiencing tremendous prosperity. Industrial factories that were once the heart of the city were now being abandoned and jobs were shifting to the service sector jobs.

In the U.S., 1950 was the first year that more people lived in suburbs than elsewhere. In the U.S, the development of the skyscraper and the sharp inflation of downtown real estate prices also led to downtowns being more fully dedicated to businesses, thus pushing residents outside the city center.

In the United States, suburbs have a prevalence of usually detached single-family homes.

Many post-World War II American suburbs are characterized by: * Lower densities than central cities, dominated by single-family homes on small plots of land, surrounded at close quarters by very similar dwellings. * Zoning patterns that separate residential and commercial development, as well as different intensities and densities of development. Daily needs are not within walking distance of most homes. * Subdivisions carved from previously rural land into multiple-home developments built by a single real estate company. These subdivisions are often segregated by minute differences in home value, creating entire communities where family incomes and demographics are almost completely homogeneous. * Shopping malls and strip malls behind large parking lots instead of a classic downtown shopping district. * A road network designed to conform to a hierarchy, including culs-de-sac, leading to larger residential streets, in turn leading to large collector roads, in place of the grid pattern common to most central cities and pre-World War II suburbs. * A greater percentage of one-story administrative buildings than in urban areas. * A greater percentage of Whites and less percentage of citizens of other ethnic groups than in urban areas. Black suburbanization grew between 1970 and 1980 by 2.6% as a result of central city neighborhoods expanding into older neighborhoods vacated by whites. * Compared to rural areas, suburbs usually have greater population density, higher standards of living, more complex road systems, more franchised stores and restaurants, and less farmland and wildlife.

By 2010 suburbs increasingly gained people in racial minority groups as White Americans moved back to city centers.

Suburbia was the subject matter for the American photojournalist Bill Owens, whose books documented the culture of suburbia in the 1970s, most notably his book Suburbia.

The 1962 song "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds lampoons the development of suburbia and its perceived bourgeois and conformist values.

In Britain, television series such as The Good Life, Butterflies and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin depicted suburbia as well-manicured but relentlessly boring, and its residents as either overly conforming or prone to going stir crazy.

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[c0deMunkey]

I want to live in this era...

[Eduardovital]

That America is gone....so sad...

[vontroster]

I didn't see one huge fatso in the whole thing!

[APP4]

this was a time when americas culture was so vibrant and lively. now it seems we are pretty boring and dull, and spend lots of time looking at screeens of many sorts

[dogdogaaaaa]

its sounds like the start of a Twilight Zone episode =)

[Mannycom420]

I like the woods.

[mystrol3]

@cybtb Spanish are SOUTHERN Europeans IDIOT!!

[mystrol3]

@cybtb uh "ergo"... we all come from one place! difference is that ALOT of pale looking people's from the northern Europe feel "superior" to all others. Oh you probably forgot, but let me remind you, there was a lot of RAPED AFRICAN SLAVES with 50% of anglo blood in them in this land(so you have problems there). Then of course, we have scattered documented cases where white anglo's ATE indians! Still think mixed race is deplorable?

[j4cksincl4ir]

"70% of home purchases are made by young adults". That is a surreal statistic now when young people have to share apartments or live with their parents. If they are lucky, a couple's combined income will "earn" them a 95% mortgage.

[j4cksincl4ir]

The colour scene at 0:57 has red flags flying which look like either the red ensign of the old Canadian flag or the current flag of Ontario.

[DuralastTurbo]

@ycmgh Calling me names doesn't change the fact that N E 1 who pretends Bush is responsible 4 driving America down the drain is an anti-white RACIST neo-commie retard butt licker 4 Obama, who by every conceivable measure is even infinitely WORSE than Bush =) Go on with your "KILL WHITEY!" dance, troll. U think U R being clever, but U R transparent.

[ycmgh]

@DuralastTurbo thx. good luck workin' out your fears.