 The Columbia Broadcasting System and its 217 affiliated stations present the CBS Radio Workshop. Radio's distinguished series dedicated to man's imagination, The Theatre of the Mind. Tonight, for the first time on the air, a treatment of A.C. Spatorsky's current and sensational bestseller. A factual yet incredible report of those New Yorkers who try to mix work in the city with country living. And who almost invariably end up behind the eight wall. Narrated by Eric Severide, the CBS Radio Workshop presents The X-Urbanites. This is Eric Severide. Since the X-Urbanites became a bestseller, it has been called terrifying, hilarious, penetrating, savage. What you will call it depends entirely on you. But you can be sure of this. Whoever you are, wherever you live, the X-Urbanites will strike home to you. Because it's the account of the men who publish your magazines, who hold sway over your radio and television programs, who shape your buying habits in their advertising agencies. Every day of your life, they encourage you to tremendous dreams. Because they themselves earn their rich living by dreaming tremendously. Sunshine. Man, where did you find sunshine like that? You like it, friend? Well, this is the greatest you've ever painted, Pruitt. The way that sunlight streams through the window, the way it lights the herbs in the window box, the way it touches the girl's hair, the way it dramatizes the can opener. Call me Van Gogh. No, I mean it, Pruitt. This is the best art work I've seen as art director of this agency. It'll sell a million can openers, or I go down with a Titanic. Who's the model? Who needs a model for the typical American housewife? She's dream stuff, Fred, just like the sunshine. I painted this on a rainy day that would float the Titanic. Now, are you ready for the power lawnmower layout? Let's have her. Well, here she is. Call me Rembrandt. This hits me right here. This fellow, the way you've got his teeth clenched on that pipe, the way you've got him bending lovingly over those roses, the age of those gloves on his hands, the beat-up trowel he holds. Oh, that takes me back. Back to what? Park Avenue? To my father out in Michigan. That's the way he used to bend over his roses in the twilight. That same twilight that you've caught right here. He had roots, my old man had. Sometimes I wonder why I ever left Michigan. Well, for the same reasons I left Kansas. 25,000 a year, and a choice of the best analysts. Maybe. But you still couldn't paint like this if you hadn't gone back to the soil. I beg your pardon. That place that you've gotten Connecticut, trees, grass, land, roots. You've left New York and got yourself some new roots, Pruitt. Sure have. Setting me back 500 to have him removed from my driveway. Okay, okay, laugh it up. But I envy you that place, man. Every time I see you lucky fellows head for the country at the end of the day, I remember my father and his roses. Some ex-urbanites have a highly developed talent for remembering events that have never occurred. But Fred Northschild had a father in Michigan who gardened at twilight. Now, as an advertising agency art director, his dreams were of a vice presidency. But that night in his spacious, comfortable, beautifully decorated Manhattan apartment, the dreams he had helped to dream for millions of American consumers suddenly took over. He was on the verge of becoming an ex-urbanite. Liz, where's the bottle opener? Right here, on the wall. That thing is the bottle opener? The magic handy open all. Your agency ran a campaign that sold 2 million in three weeks. Well, how could I see it? There's no sunlight falling on it. Not right now. No, it's a cloudy night. Well, this kitchen has no sunlight even when there is sunlight. Every kitchen ought to have sunlight. Sunlight and herbs. Herbs? There's not a single darned herb in the window box. Well, actually there isn't a window box. Every kitchen needs a window box. With herbs. Just the most important ones, of course. But what you really need is a whole herb garden. You put them just this side of the roses. I go a little easy on the high balls, dear. It's only eight o'clock and the bakers are coming over for a bridge in a few minutes. The bakers. Not a root between them. I beg your pardon. They've got no roots. We've got no roots. I see. Well, all if it's roots you want and roses, I guess that means we'll have to move to the suburbs. Not them, Liz. Not the suburbs house after house. Just the like. I mean the real country. Up beyond the suburbs and an hour from town by train. Grass, lots of the trees. All you want. Hair, all you want of that. How about it, Liz? Well, I suppose we could look at, Liz. I knew you'd be for it. Liz, it'll be the greatest thing we ever did. Thus to the New Yorker, the country is that land that lies beyond the crowded suburbs, yet remains within 60 minutes train time of his office. This is a land of exurbia. Ex meaning from, and erbia meaning the crowded city and its suburbs. In going to exurbia, he will find it already filled with men like himself who are gainfully employed in the field of communications, radio, television, commercial art, magazine publishing, public relations, and the theater. In no other field is there more fantastic competition. They deal in ideas and ideas alone. Tomorrow someone may have a better idea. Tomorrow they may suddenly find they are barren of ideas. They will be without a job. The escape to exurbia then is their attempt to realize a secret dream that once they are away from the rat race at nightfall, they will ride the superhighway to happiness. And so they begin to look for a place in the country. Try Bucks County. It's the only real country, Fred. Take a fast train from Penn Station, one hour to read a couple of chapters of a good book, and you're in Trenton, ready for real country living across the river in Bucks County. Bucks. Lousy with beautiful old stone houses, ready for a right guy like you to take over. Oscar Hammerstein, Dorothy Parker, Morse Hart, Bud Schildberg, they went to Bucks. You can raise black angus, hens, pigs, pheasant, or let one of the local men do it for you while you live off the fat of the land. Sleep all night with cows moving in your ears. Real music. Bucks County. One hour by train and another hour's drive to any kind of land you can buy if your name isn't Rockefeller. Did they tell you about those new steel mills in Bucks, the new Levittown thousands of homes just like on Long Island? That's country living? It'll be worse than Jersey five years from now. If you want old homes, people who really belong to the land, ever been in Rockland County? Quaint, charming, quiet. Try Sneden's Landing, New City. Look around there, the real artists, the real writers, the real theater people. They're all in Rockland, and they leave you alone. Alone? Oh, don't be dreary, Fred. Rockland County? Haven't you heard of the Thruway, the new Thruway Bridge across the Hudson? It puts the Bronx minutes from Sneden's Landing. Look, why don't you and Liv spend a weekend with Jerry and me in Chappacaw and take a look around Westchester County? Meet the reader's digest crowd, talk with the writers and the artists around Pound Ridge. Your children will love Westchester. Wonderful schools. Maybe you and Liv should come out some night and go to the PTA with me. PTA? What are you bucking for, Fred? The job of running their ice cream social? Look, if you want real rich, he-man country living, come on out to Long Island's North Shore. Oyster Bay, Manhasset, Sands Point, riding to Hounds, yachts lying at Anker, the kind of things F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about. Ever see that $15 million Chateau Marshall Field built there? Vacation place. When they have a wedding, they hire the New York Philharmonic and hide him in the shrubbery to play the wedding march. Wonderful crowd out there in the North Shore. Wonderful, I'll bet. If you have a chauffeur. But we're not in that class, Fred. You'll have to ride the Long Island Railroad. Yeah, let me see. That's a fate worse than death. Well, I guess we've covered everything, but Fairfield County so far, Liz. Well, Connecticut, here we come. In considering a move to the ex-serves, it is inevitable that the departing New Yorker gives strong consideration to Fairfield County, Connecticut. To use a speech habit of its inhabitants. A, it is the most famous. B, it is the fastest growing. C, it is the richest in ex-urban manifestations. I suppose you already know a lot of people who already live in here in Fairfield, Mr. Norshield. Oh, yes, Mr. Burnham. Several men in our agency live out here. Now, I'm going to show you folks a beautiful house just put on the market. Nine rooms, three baths, and 12 coach lamps. Coach lamps? Oh, everybody in Fairfield County has coach lamps, Mrs. Norshield. This place even has two besides the outdoor barbecue. You realize what that means, Liz? We can cook our steaks outdoors every evening. What kind of heat does this place have, Mr. Burnham? Heat. Four fireplaces. Four beautiful fireplaces. And a whole acre of old trees you can cut up for firewood. What about a furnace or something? A furnace. I never thought to ask about that. We're busy out here in Fairfield. I suppose you know we've just about traveled our population the last few years. We're also the richest county in the nation. Even beat Samarilla, Texas. Oh, you mean something's richer than something in Texas? That's right, Mrs. Norshield. Why, advertising agency presidents and board chairman are a dime a dozen. Mere vice presidents and account executives are just foot soldiers. Out here in Fairfield, you'll find the publishers of Life, Woman's Hong Companion, 17, Look, Harper's Bazaar, American Weekly, and the president of Time Incorporated. And you'll find that... Did you say something, Mrs. Norshield? Before we drive much farther, Mr. Burnham, I'd like to ask one thing. Yes, ma'am. How much is this house? 50 or five. What is that in English? 50,500. For nine rooms? Well, that includes the coach lamps, the barbecue, and a beautiful blue stone terrace. But no furnace. Well, now don't you worry about that furnace until you see the place, Mrs. Norshield. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, there's two cobbler's manches go over the place. They say everybody in Fairfield County has a Jaguar, a barbecue, coach lamps, and a cobbler's bench. Mr. C is about arranging the mortgage tomorrow. Which house is this? The first one we looked at. Oh, yes, the one that needs a furnace and a new leg on the second cobbler's bench. Oh, come off of it. Aren't you excited? Of course, dear. By the way, do we get a free timetable with a mortgage? What about the timetable? Mr. Norshield used to live in that section, and she says that you'll have to rise and shine at 7 a.m. to dress, have breakfast, and drive to the 15 miles to the station to catch the 815. Share this seat with you? By sure, of course. Thank you. Pruitt, my gosh, I didn't even look up when you asked if you could sit down. One never asked if one can sit down, Fred. One asked if one may share one's seat. That's the officer's club code of our army. Hmm? What army? We have just joined. The most highly-paid, most thoroughly-disciplined army in the world. The commuting army. 360,000 commuters descend to New York every working day. They're revelry the alarm clock. It wakes them at dawn, sends them out into rain, sweet snow, and the fogs of hangover in their second car. That's right. You know, we hadn't counted on buying a second car, but Liz had to use one car to take the kids to school and back and to do her shopping. What did you get for parking at the station? Jaguar? Station wagon? What difference does it make? Well, Fred, it's very important for a man who wants to become a vice president. Are you kidding? Well, the men in your position, the car you drive to the station, testifies to your sensitivity to what is expected of you. Well, Jaguar denotes class, yes, but a jeep presumes that your wife is using the Cadillac to take the kids to school here. That car and your associates on the train can make or break you. Pruitt, are you drunk this morning? You're talking like a crazy man. You'll see about the associates. For example, Fred, those two presidents of big agencies who get on at your station, you speak to them, of course. Well, I nod. You're learning. A nod, but never speak unless spoken to. You haven't jostled them getting on to the train. No. Well, you are learning. Well, one of them may need a vice president six months from now. He may start speaking to you on the station platform if you haven't jostled. Until then, merely nod, never speak. And agency president is one of the brats. You're not even a VP yet. You're still one of the foot soldiers. Now, listen, poor, you know... Grand Central! Grand Central! Goodbye, friend. No, say, wait, I'll walk through the station with you. I better not. The candidate for vice president is known by the company keeps. I'm a mere freelance artist dependent on you for work. I could be court-martialed for just... Grand Central! Fred is a new ex-urbanite, of course, but already he had learned that the rat race from which he has tried to escape now begins the moment his car appears at the station in the morning. It continues as he boards the train, nodding to lesser foot soldiers, and to higher brass. It continues as he rides to his working day, and soon it is with him as he starts to leave the office. My home, friend? Oh, something you wanted, JP? Oh, no, no, no, nothing very much. I had been trying to get to you all day, but I got tied in with a brass at BBDNO and couldn't make it. No, I just wanted to talk to you about Hubble, that young assistant of yours. What's wrong, JP? Wrong. Nothing's wrong. You ought to be congratulated for picking such a bright young guy. He was around last night after most of the shop had gone home, and he and Dorfmeyer and I got to polishing some ideas. Well, why didn't you call me in? Well, we looked for you, but you'd gone and catch the train already. Oh, I'd been glad to stay. Well, don't worry about it, Fred. I can give you all that in a memo, but, you know, it seems to me we need a fresh slant on things. A couple of times recently, with one client or another, I've been left standing with egg on my face. I wonder if we don't have an awful lot of fat around here. We've got spear holders that haven't had their tails kicked in years. You know, if we're going places with the Chief's new program for increased billings, we've got to get some new blood, like Hubble, real hot guys, young, aggressive. Fact is, I've been thinking of one young fella who's over at McCann right now. He, uh... Well, I'll sum this up in a memo and we'll wax our skis together some morning. Now, you better hurry and catch your train. Hello? Something wrong, Fred? What are you having, an office party? Party. No three, back from Britain. You fell asleep again. Say goodnight to the kids for me. Oh, sure. They'll be up for school in a minute or two. This seems something less than the sweetheart of Sigma Chi. Consider the case for her and her sisters of Exurbia. Before marriage, the ex-urbanite wife may have been a Smith graduate clad in the Smith uniform of cashmere sweater and single strand of pearls. She may have been a member of the dirty neck and dirndl set in Greenwich Village. She may have been an actress, a model, or a secretary. But whatever she has been, the ex-urban wife is trying desperately to re-establish a common bond with her husband. She has moved from a small, easily maintained city apartment near stores and people to the ex-urbs where she has eight rooms as a half-mile distance from the nearest adult during the daylight hours and must drive five to ten miles to the nearest store. It is she who first realizes how tenuous, how limited his dream has become even when he earns 25,000 a year. How does it happen that they spend at least $2,000 more than they receive? Head ruled in New York State in some taxes. $5,000 this year, please. New York State tax. We live in Connecticut. Your husband earns his salary in New York State, ma'am. It doesn't matter where you live. $5,000, please. Thank you, ma'am. Just be glad New York City doesn't tax you commuters. They're considering it, you know. $2,500 a year, Miss Nostilt. And Saturday's all day off, Sunday's all day off, and Thursday afternoon's off. Well, that's a lot of money, Hilda. If any more, they offer me $3,000 to come be their maid. Well, they have three children. We have only two. Oh, well, hey, Liz, I'm not going to have my wife doing all the housework alone. You've got to keep up appearances, too. Yeah, Mr. Nostilt, that is $2,500, please. Thank you. Summer camp for me and Penny. $500 a piece, please. Dancing lessons, me and Penny. $200 a piece, please. Failing lessons, me, $100. Tennis lessons, Penny, $150. Total, $1,450, please. Thank you, ma'am. Tickets, please. Tickets, please. One year's commuting, $150, sir. Thank you. Food. $3,500. Insurance. $1,000, not enough. Clothes for wife, self, and family. $2,150, including one shared meeting. I hadn't had a new coat in two years. Not going to ask for a mint. New York expenses, lunches, cigarettes, taxis. $2,000. Plumbing repairs, window repairs, roof repairs, heat, light, all the things our rent used to pay the landlord for doing. Christmas presents, upkeep on two cars, upkeep on grounds around the house. Hey, Mr. Northfield, you're interested in them roses now? Roses? What roses? The first day you and the Mrs. moved in, you was talking about coming home and working with your roses. You bought a trowel. How can I take care of roses with my front yard solid with crabgrass? How can I think about trowels when you're charging me $200 after that last hurricane washed my driveway a quarter mile down the highway? Oh, all right. Fred, no, you can't spend any more. You've already spent a total of $27,500 in a year. I don't know, Liz. I don't know. Maybe I'll get a vice presidency and a fat increase. Maybe your mother will die and leave us something. We're bound to break even sometime. Fred's plight is a deplorable, comical, tragic, incredible. It depends on the state of your own bank account and on your own morality. But in exurbia, it is not an isolated case. As a general rule, whether he lives in Bucks, Rockland, Westchester, or Fairfield County or on Long Island, the exurbanite consumer indomitably spends far more than he can earn. An exurban lawyer, himself a counselor on tax and investment matters to other exurbanites, estimates that around the time the high-spending exurbanite makes $60,000 a year, he is beginning to make ends meet. Until then, it's murder. Why doesn't he get out, quit, move to another place, and give up the rat race? I'll tell you why. Anywhere else you live in these United States, it's a matter of keeping up with the Joneses. Where we live, you've got to keep ahead of the Joneses. It's we who set the styles, mold the fashions, dream the dreams for the rest of the country. What we do this week will be done a few months from now in Lake Forest in Santa Barbara and on Philadelphia's mainline. What we decree and talk about in our magazines will be picked up and talked about in Gross Point and Sea Wickley and Beverly Hills. A month from now, a million matrons will be trying to make a wonder diet dreamed up by an exurbanite woman on the 815. An exurbanite woman with a natural size 10 waist. Several millions more will be quoting the editorial in life. Teenagers from coast to coast will try to look like the girl on the cover of Mademoiselle. The man in the Hathaway shirt. The man from Schweppes. The jingle that put the words, don't be half-safe to the tune of the Volga Boltman. They all were dreamed up on the 815 and its counterparts. There isn't an advertising man, a writer, an artist, an actor, a photographer. He's finally in the United States with ideas who wouldn't give his shirt to crack New York. And so it goes. These exurbanites come from all over the United States to New York with dreams of writing that great book, painting those great pictures, staging that great play. They find the world of the mass magazine of radio, television, advertising needs fresh creative talent for its own ends. The lure of the big money is irresistible. The money increases, the dream changes. Caught in the mesh of symbols which they purvey to the rest of the nation, the country home, the foreign car, the neatly tailored lawn, the power lawnmower, they become exurbanites seeking to escape from one rat race only to find themselves in another. A few give up and paint those pictures or write that novel. Some even return to Manhattan where the landlord fixes the leak on the roof. The rest remain. Their dreams limited by money, train schedules and sheer physical fatigue. All this as you see him at home with his family at the office with his companions on the train. The exurbanite is witty, amusing, clever, entertaining. A man who is fun to be with and rewarding to talk to. Never vanquished, he now has a new secret dream of giving it all up to run a health resort for other broken down exurbanites. To own a country hotel or an antique business or actually to farm his land and make it pay. Exurbia is full of these secret dreams. Meanwhile, he does the best he can at the difficult and exciting job of living. And the job he does is under the circumstances often remarkably good. You have been listening to The Exurbanites, a special treatment of A.C. Spectorsky's report on New Yorkers in the communications field. Prepared by Charles S. Monroe, narrated by Eric Severide and directed by Paul Roberts. The music was composed by Ben Ludlow and conducted by Alfredo Antonini. Featured in the cast were John Larkin as Fred, Jan Minor as Liz, and Joe Helgeson as Pruitt. This is Bob Hyde inviting you to listen to the CBS Radio Workshop next Friday for The Enormous Radio by John Cheever. The CBS Radio Workshop is produced in New York by Paul Roberts. Five minutes of the latest CBS News. And remember America listens most to the CBS Radio Workshop.