Suburban Manifest Destiny

 

    Right after the second time the world went to war, Americans came home to a cultural switch to support comfortability in surrounding areas around the big city. The creation of the suburb was a move that changed the image of American homeowners and propelled the housing market into the developer’s road we are on today. What was the appeal? The privacy, the sense of ownership, or the increased room. People flocked to these new developments without acknowledging the architecture they were supporting or the repercussions on our modern life. 

The rise in consumerism, post war-bond effort, allowed people to procure things to make their lives ‘easier’ or more comfortable. To complement these commodities, you must have your own house to hold them all. And so, like everything else, people were now able to buy a house out of their catalogue magazines. Your kit of parts houses that enabled everyday Americans to build their starter home for an affordable cost. With this came the market need for more houses and more developments. The same needs that we are seeing today are the numbers that developers use to justify the short-term money grab of a large-scale project with small units that are put together simply. These developers, without the bat of an eye, plow acres of land to begin terraforming the once vast and full wildlife and green lands. Disgraceful. 

There was line in a song that made me think about this situation after David had talked about the suburban development in America. In the song called ‘The Last Resort’, by The Eagles, the lines in the second verse go:

“And they came from everywhere

To the Great Divide

Seeking a place to stand

Or a place to hide ….

Some rich men came and raped the land

Nobody caught 'em

Put up a bunch of ugly boxes

And Jesus people bought 'em

And they called it paradise

The place to be

They watched the hazy sun

Sinking in the sea”

    The song specifically talks about the expansion out west and the development in the Nevada region, but I feel it can be applied to a lot more of the United States. He touches on the people with resources wanting more and the repercussions of that and the response to plow natural marvels for unpleasant pleasantries for the every-day man. Much like the American Manifest destiny to expand west, we have hit a new suburban or developers manifest destiny.