Suburbia: From 1950 to 2016

In chapter six of the book The New Urban Sociology, the authors tell us about suburbanization and the timeline of life in suburbia throughout the years. The book talks about the concept of white flight; where white families moved out of neighborhoods in the cities and moved into suburbs where the quality of life was better. In the same way, black families were migrating north from the south and they began to occupy the inner cities. Abraham Levitt and his sons used their construction company to build the first suburb and pioneer the American Dream. However, Levitt’s company did not want to let black or other minority families live in the suburb because they feared it would bring down the value of the neighborhood. They were also afraid that selling the houses to black families would make it more difficult for them to sell to white buyers. They began to screen their applicants for race in order to keep the neighborhood white.

The racially segregated suburbs of the 1950’s are long gone, but we still see a big racial divide in many different cities. For example, in Chicago, the city is not only divided among racial lines, but by class and socioeconomic lines as well. The city of Chicago is literally divided by expressways, with the north side of the city in one direction and the south side in the other direction. When driving down the expressway you can literally see the divide as you travel father north or farther south.

While I was reading, I began to wonder about how Chicago is segregated, and which areas of the city had which type of people. In an article called “A Colorized View of the Racial Divide in Chicago” (http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/04/28/a-colorized-view-of-the-racial-divide-in-chicago/)  there is a map that illustrates all the different areas of the city and what the demographics of each area look like. In this article you can see exactly who lives in which parts of the city. I also found a blog post about the early suburbs and how they operated. It’s titled, “The Racial Make-up of Suburbanization” (http://social.rollins.edu/wpsites/thirdsight/2013/11/15/the-racial-make-up-of-suburbanization/) and it cites the rise of suburbanization as well as the racially divided aspects of suburbia. The blog cites classic American TV shows such as Leave It To Beaver as examples that the ideas of Levitt were reflected in American popular culture. The blog also provides a lot of historic photos to illustrate the ideas behind suburbanization in the 1950’s.

I also thought about how life in the suburbs is viewed today, thinking that it might be viewed differently than the escape that it was originally compared to. While thinking about that, I remembered the Disney channel original movie Stuck in the Suburbs. The movie is about a teenage girl who hates her seemingly routine life in the suburbs all while fan girling over the lead singer of a band. She ends up accidentally switching phones with the singer, and subsequently her entire life is thrown in the air as she experiences life as a famous celebrity. Eventually she and the singer exchange the right phones and she ends up appreciating her normal life. 

  I thought of this movie because I think today, there is a shift in people moving out of the suburbs and back into the city. Before, young couples wanted to live a quiet life in the suburbs. Now, it seems as if the grandchildren of those young couples are longing for a more exciting , fast paced life. I also think about my own experience growing up in the suburbs and I realize that I have no desire for suburban life. Instead, I want to live where there’s action, and always something to do.