Suburbia
House, Backyard, Car
On the Sidewalks of Suburbia
A series of debates surrounding the exhibition Suburbia. Building the American Dream offers insight into American culture through literature, urban planning, sociology, and film and television.
The image of the suburbs represents, like few others, the aspirations, desires and values of post-war American society: the rise of the middle class, the triumph of the culture of work and capitalism, the birth of the consumer society and the pursuit of private property, the pervasiveness of WASP values, and the nuclear family as the backbone of society and the moral code.
Decades on from the emergence of this model, we offer a stroll along the sidewalks of Suburbia to look at its most recent transformations and to engage in a broader reflection on American culture and society today. Considering literature, sociology, urban planning, and film and television, we will take stock of the successes and divergences in the suburban model and the “American Dream” it aimed to support, examining its ongoing validity in a world that is very different from the one that saw it emerge.
This activity is part of Suburbia
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