The American Suburbs: An Escape from Reality, a Dimension of Denial

Suburbia is a central piece to American culture. In 1934, the National Emergency Council met to study the extreme decline of the housing market after the Great Depression. As a result, President Franklin Roosevelt passed the National Housing Act (1934) as part of the New Deal. The National Housing Act allowed for low-interest 30-year mortgages and founded the Federal Housing Administration. From 1934 to 1965 when the FHA would turn into the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the FHA passed a series of policies and recommendations for the mortgage lending industry. One of the results of these policies was the mass development of suburbia and urban sprawl as the suburban dream became an affordable reality for white Americans. This trend has continued into the 21st century despite its negative impact on the environment and society as a whole. This paper will dissect two sources related to the American middle classes flee to the suburbs during the 1940s and during present day. The first object of analysis is an advertisement created by General Electric in 1942 advertising suburban, single-family, Victory Homes equipped with all the necessary electric equipment and offering safety from the thought of war. The second object of analysis is a recent article published by The New York Times on the decision of New York City residents to move to suburbs in New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, and Connecticut amid coronavirus concerns among other things. While separated in time by eighty years, both sources comment on the role of suburbia as demonstrated by Americans throughout history and its purpose as an escape from reality. Both sources tell the story of a “promise” for a better future whether that means global peace or peace of mind.

Understanding the historical context for both sources is necessary in order to understand the larger thought process of the subjects of both pieces. In 1942, when the General Electric advertisement was published and distributed, America was recently involved in World War II. The president of the United States was Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) who had been in office for nearly an entire decade. At that time, FDR’s presidency had provided Americans with the New Deal. The New Deal passed in 1933 and in addition to passing labor laws like minimum wage and social security it also resulted in the Homeowners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the GI Bill. These two pieces of legislation set the foundation for the 1942 General Electric Advertisement depicting a serviceman and his wife sitting in a park drawing a picture of a single-family home in the sand with a stick. HOLC created a system for categorizing areas into high-risk and low-risk investment areas in order to ease the concern of private banks who had stopped offering mortgages because of too many loan defaults following the Great Depression. In other words, it was HOLC’s job to set the standard for safe investment and it chose white families and white neighborhoods as the prime, low-risk, candidate. Further, in 1934, the National Housing Act created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) which offered low-interest 30-year mortgages to white families in general. The GI Bill also ensured low interest, zero down payment home loans for servicemen in addition to increased opportunities for education in an effort to reintegrate veterans into society. As a result, the man in the General Electric advertisement is benefiting in two ways from the government: as a white serviceman he is considered a low risk loanee by the HOLC and the GI Bill offers low interest, zero down payment home loans on his beautiful home drawn in the sand. His wife at this time is not benefiting from the same legislation. In fact, if she was involved in any non-profit work, she had just become excluded from the minimum wage legislation and could certainly not support herself alone. The wife is extremely dependent upon her white serviceman husband for means to live. In addition to the various housing policies that pushed servicemen and white families to move to the newly developed suburbs, a second world war had just become a terrifying reality. As a result, this time period is fraught with concern about the state of the world and the future safety of Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that fueled the United States decision to join the allied forces. The woman in the advertisement does not know if her husband will return from war. She also might not know what will happen if she is widowed. General Electric offers a solution to this problem by “promising” safety and comfort in the new Victory Homes. The text below the image of the couple reads, “But that little home sketched there in the sand is a symbol of faith and hope and courage. It’s a promise, too. A promise of gloriously happy days to come…when Victory is won.” During this time period, whether for the low, low cost, or isolation from the woes of reality, white Americans are actively seeking suburban homes.

The second source published on April 22, 2021, is set in a completely different, yet similarly unprecedented, world event, a global pandemic. At the time of publication, the United States was entering the second year of pandemic life. As of January 2021, former Vice President Joe Biden had become President after four years of Donald Trump. Both presidents had completely different takes on the best method for dealing with the pandemic. Trump valued economic security over public health while President Biden encouraged economic sacrifices for the sake of a faster public health recovery. Nonetheless, this article which comments on the second wave, after summer 2020, of New York City residents fleeing the city for suburbia, is set in a period of time when the full picture as to when life would go back to normal was not nearly solved. For the time being, masks, social distancing, remote work, and closed restaurants and bars were the norm until enough of the American population was vaccinated (at least). This sentiment is shown by the recorded intentions of each of the former-city dwellers as they provided their reasoning for moving to the suburbs. Journalists Vivian Marino and C. J. Hughes, summarized the forces for the movement of New Yorkers towards suburbia as “historically low mortgage rates; pandemic-fatigued city dwellers desperate for more space; and many employers’ willingness to embrace remote work, allowing buyers to look in places beyond what would be considered an easy commute.” In addition to pandemic fears, the journalists noted one couples’ reasoning as wanting to escape city protests. This could be connected to the June 2020 George Floyd protests around the country (and world) after George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was subjected to excessive force by police and killed on the scene. Protests against police brutality spiked in the summer of 2020 and potentially contributed to suburban intentions among New Yorkers notes Marino and Hughes, “After spending extended time outside of New York to avoid coronavirus, lockdowns and street protests, some buyers warmed to the idea of full-time non urban life. Potentially, there is a fourth force causing New Yorkers to flee the city: preferred ignorance to the conditions of society.

The subjects of both of these pieces overlap in some ways and conflict in others. General Electric viewed their audience as the average couple with average means. The man and the woman sit in a park, enjoying nature, and drawing their home in the dirt as opposed to on a piece of paper or actually touring the homes General Electric planned to develop and offer to couples just like them. Instead, they are the everyday American white couple. The race of the couple is not a surprise as the polcies of the New Deal, both HOLC and the GI Bill, did not benefit non-white citizens or black veterans nearly as much, if at all, than whites. As such, General Electric excludes non-white Americans from the thought  of living in their Victory Homes by excluding them from the ideal pictured in the advertisement. Conversely, the demographic boundaries of the NYT subjects, if there are any, become less clear in terms of designating any consistent theme among the new suburban residents relating to class, race, or other demographic categories. It seems everyone, black, white, gay, is moving to the suburbs as long as they have the means. In fact, money becomes the central exclusionary characteristic of the modern suburban growth model: with rising demand comes rising costs and only those who can afford to front the money and appeal to the seller the best will win the chance to live out the rest of their quarantine, or lives, in suburban bliss. Marino and Hughes highlight multiple couples who ended up spending one hundred grand or more over their maximum budget in order to win the suburban lottery. One couple said, “We paid a lot over — I don’t want to say how much,” said Ms. Plotkin, 28. “When we started looking, we were less comfortable with bidding over the asking price, but then we came to realize that we had to in order to get a house.” Both sources of analysis exclude those not pictured and intentionally. Whether because those excluded are not accepted within society or cannot afford pandemic suburbia, there are exclusions to the suburban American dream in both 1942 and 2021.

One significant similarity between the two sources is the image of the single-family home. General Electric limits the amount of information on the specific desired details of the couple’s ideal suburban home. It clearly has one window, a roof, a door, and four walls. But the advertisement does not show a yard or the fancy dining room or kitchen where the General Electric appliances would most likely be kept. No, this is a minimal, scaled-down version of the suburban dream home and that’s most likely connected to the limited means of its buyers. While the GI Bill and HOLC policies allowed for the right economic condition to buy the house, the fine details of how it looked and what it contained were most likely as limited as the funds the couple had left over after purchasing their new home. Nonetheless, the larger emotional value of the home is depicted in the General Electric advertisement and goes beyond the physical description. The four walls covered by a roof will provide a safe place for after the war. This small home will be a reason to come home. It’s an investment into the ideal future that is hopefully just on the horizon. The home is an escape from the realities of war while also serving as the destination after victory (Victory Homes). The NYT article offers a little bit more physical description for the ideals of the house. Instead of being limited by the means to purchase a suburban home, the former city-dwellers are limited by choice. As inventory dwindles, so do the expectations of the home buyer. But a few key characteristics remain central to the decision to buy a suburban home despite the chaos of the market. For example, a retreat from the pandemic, an isolation oasis, more space for the children to run around and attend online school, and a home office for remote work. What do all these characteristics have in common? Just like the 1942 couple, the NYT featured couples hope to escape reality and isolate comfortably and safely within four walls.

The role of suburbia as a social refuge remained consistent throughout the last eighty years as shown by the comparison of the General Electric advertisement and the New York Times article published in March 2021. The 1942 couple pictured in the advertisement are invested in an opportunity to physically escape what threatens their happiness and security the most, the realities of war which plague everyday life. Additionally, the images of the suburbs spread in advertisements like the General Electric advertisement promised unimaginable luxury that was not previously possible. General Electric does not hesitate to say that “faith” and “hope reside in the suburbs. The suburbs of the 21st century offer a similar escape to the New Yorkers who are tired of living in one of the most diverse and connected cities in the world, stewing in the problems of society. Escaping a war or a global pandemic is, in some ways, a human reflex. We search for shelter from the storm. The problem with this isolation arises when it becomes a consistent pattern that further stratifies the larger social sphere. Without social integration of race, class, age, religion and more, suburbs can facilitate micro-communities of like-minded people. This was the result of the 1942 urban sprawl after the HOLC policies ratings of low vs. high-risk areas completely ostracized non-white Americans from the suburban dream. There has been progress since then, but remote work, quarantine customs, and internet access threatens to isolate the American family. We are a form of society we weren’t before the pandemic hit the United States in March 2020. Isolation is not only easier than ever before as zoom and remote work become the norm, but it is actively contributing to political and social divides within our country. At what point is the freedom of expression limited by the isolation of the American audience? When does freedom of speech fall on muted earphones? When does interaction become the exception and not the rule? The suburbs are a dangerous pit for social stratification and denial.

Bibliography

Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

“Levittown, Pa. | Building the Suburban Dream.” Accessed April 11, 2022. http://statemuseumpa.org/levittown/one/b.html.

Marino, Vivian, and C. J. Hughes. “Suburban Home Sales Soar in the New York Region.” The New York Times, March 5, 2021, sec. Real Estate. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/realestate/nyc-suburbs-housing-demand.html.