Suburbia and the American Dream: Myth vs. Reality

Introduction: The Promised Land of Suburbia

The fulfillment of the American Dream was supposed to be found in the suburbs, and millions of Americans certainly tried to find it there. Like participants in a gold rush, however, although some Americans managed to realize their dream in suburbia, many others ended up disillusioned, deceived, divorced, and broke — or worse. In not a few cases, suburbanites living lives of quiet desperation ended up taking their own lives, as well as the lives of others in the process.

In the readings — Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir by D.J. Waldie, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, and Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs by Lynn Spigel, as well as the classic motion picture The Swimmer directed by Frank Perry — suburbia is often portrayed as a problematic, even dangerous environment for American men. This paper provides a review of these works and an analysis of the film to determine whether this was in fact the case, along with supporting rationale.

Postwar White Flight and the Making of Suburban Space

Following the end of World War II, millions of Americans flocked to the suburbs in an attempt to secure their piece of the American pie, as well as to escape the influx of African Americans into northern cities — a process that has been termed "white flight." Consequently, the suburbia of the postwar era was characterized by certain segments of the population seeking to sequester themselves away from other segments, in what were intended to be utopian pockets of existence. According to Spigel, "Despite the Civil Rights movement and fair housing legislation of the 1960s, from 1960 to 1977, 4 million whites moved out of central cities, while the number of whites living in suburbs increased by twenty-two million. During the same years, the inner city black population grew by 6 million" (2001, p. 16). It seems reasonable, then, to characterize the suburbia of the latter half of the twentieth century as primarily a white American experience that was profoundly different from life in the big city. In this regard, Spigel adds that "Postwar America witnessed a significant shift in traditional notions of neighborhood. Mass-produced suburbs such as Levittown, New York, and Park Forest, Illinois, replaced previous forms of public space with a newly defined aesthetic of prefabrication" (2001, p. 33).

These mass-produced suburbs welcomed everyone — so long as they fit the intended American Dream mold. "At the center of the suburban space," Spigel writes, "was the young, upwardly mobile middle-class family; the suburban community was designed to correspond with and reproduce patterns of nuclear family life" (p. 33). Other Americans who failed to meet these criteria — including "older people, gay and lesbian people, homeless people, unmarried people, and people of color" — were simply not welcome and were "relegated back to the cities" (2001, p. 33). This is not to say that the suburbs were entirely without diversity, but rather that the suburban experience was largely confined to white Americans. According to Spigel, "Although the attempt to zone out 'undesirables' was never totally successful, this antiseptic model of space was the reigning aesthetic at the heart of the postwar suburb" (p. 34).

In the course of this suburbanization, some young, upwardly mobile, middle-class white families managed to overcome suburbia's ugly downsides and build new lives for themselves, typified by a happy family life and meaningful professional careers. Many others, however — who likely outnumbered the successful and happy ones by far — found that the move to the suburbs was a definite mistake, and their lives ended up far different from what the American Dream had promised.

The Swimmer: A Dangerous Journey Home

The several readings and the motion picture identified in the introduction confirm that suburbia was not only a problematic place to live, but could be downright dangerous as well. An old saying suggests that "you can never go home," and this adage is borne out in the 1968 motion picture The Swimmer, in which the "Lucinda River" — named for his wife — appears to represent a novel and appealing way for Ned Merrill to return to his formerly happy suburban life.

Merrill is at first enthusiastically received by his old friends at the top of the hill where the idea first occurs to him. As he proceeds to swim the series of pools back to his formerly stately residence, however, his various encounters with former friends and associates convince him that the idea may not have been so good after all. This metaphoric descent into despair is poignant evidence that Ned has been deluded into a certain way of thinking, and his slow but sure recognition of reality becomes apparent as he moves from swimming pool to swimming pool. Despite Merrill's assertions that "I knew we would encounter lots of friends on the way," the warmth of his receptions diminishes the farther down the hill he travels, until they become outright hostile.

Merrill begins his journey happy and carefree, running and jumping with the energy of a schoolboy. After five pools and five cocktails, however, things begin to turn dark. His penultimate visit — to a public pool where he is compelled to borrow fifty cents for admission — provides him with the epiphany he has been seeking, even if it is not the one he wanted. Upon learning what his daughters truly think of him, Merrill ends up a sobbing figure on the front porch of his former residence, now vacant of his belongings and his family.

Merrill's financial difficulties are only alluded to, but it becomes apparent that his marriage was deeply troubled and that he had experienced significant financial setbacks. For example, his exchange with the nudist couple, the Hallorans, lounging by their pool and making snide comments about their neighbors is indicative of the mutual contempt in which many suburbanites held one another. The husband laments to Ned that he was sorry he could not help him during his time of crisis; Ned's response — that he did not recall asking for his help — surprises both Hallorans, though it does not convince them he will not be back for a loan in the future. Clearly, the "Lucinda River" offers Merrill a route home, but it is a dangerous journey that does not deliver his desired outcome. For this well-intentioned but misguided individual, suburbia is a truly dangerous place in which to live.

Conclusion

The research showed that in many cases, life in the American suburbs of the twentieth century was in fact a problematic existence, and downright dangerous for some. The authors and screenwriter examined in this paper provided a fairly grim view of American suburbia, with many of the characters living in these sequestered communities described in less than admirable terms. While there were certainly problems associated with suburban life, there were also severe problems associated with inner-city life that arguably outweighed the social issues produced by postwar white flight — and it appears reasonable to conclude that the inner city was a far more dangerous place to live than suburbia. Nevertheless, the research also indicates that even the most affluent and secluded suburbs were not free of violent crime, and the desperation engendered by the gap between popular perceptions of what suburban life should be and what it was in reality caused many Americans to question their circumstances and how they arrived at such a sorry state.

It would seem that for every successful and happy American in the suburbs, there was also a Ned Merrill and a Frank Wheeler living out a life of quiet desperation — with some finding the experience so devastating that they were compelled to take their own lives. Problematic? Certainly. Dangerous? Perhaps. Not everyone experienced these levels of hardship and peril in the suburbs, of course, but it seems apparent that suburban life was not what mainstream media — especially the television programming of the era — cracked it up to be, and many people wondered what they were doing wrong in their attempts to achieve the American Dream. This fundamental discrepancy between what was supposed to be and what was in reality contributed to a deeply problematic existence for many people during this period of American history, a dichotomy fueled in large part by media images of happy families living satisfied and fulfilled lives in the suburbs.

References

Cheever, John and Eleanor Perry. 1968. "The Swimmer." Columbia Tristar Home Video.

Spigel, Lynn. 2001. Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs. Durham: Duke University Press.

Waldie, D.J. 2005. Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Yates, Richard. 1962. Revolutionary Road. Boston: Bantam Books.