Suburbi The Role Of Urbanization In American Class Culture

Thesis: The unconventional nature of urban environments became sanctuary to artists escaping the alienating essence of suburbia's cookie cutter reality, later resulting in the capitalization of their bohemia and the gentrification of cities.

The Suburbs
In order to understand why bohemian artists favored and migrated to urban sectors in comparison to suburbs, we must first understand what factors of suburbia make this group feel the need to leave. In a nutshell recalling history, suburbanization is a phenomenon which characterizes the post WWII 50s era for three main reasons; (1) The economic boom following WWII, (2) the need for housing returning veterans and baby boomers cheaply, (3) Whites fleeing the desegregation of urban cities brought

Author of Postmodern Suburban Spaces, Joseph George describes suburbia as “ rows and rows of single-family houses with the same floor plan … populated by families of identical white people, showing off their identical material goods”. In addition to this suburban image, Simone de Beauvoir describes the day to day of a married couple in suburban society in his book The Second Sex; “[Members] have lost their independence without escaping loneliness; they are statically united … can give each other nothing, exchange nothing, wheather in the realm of ideas or erotic plain. A thousand evenings of vague small talk, blank silence, yawning over the news paper, retiring at bedtime!” (Beauvoir, 471). By tying these examples of suburban life, we can begin to outline the bohemian artists perspective living in a conformist community governed by homogenized consumer lifestyle, thus proving the presence of a cookie cutter reality. The 1990 film Edward Scissorhands is a great example, setted in a suburban neighborhood with identical cars and modeled houses whose inhabitants gossip and show off their TVs, toasters, blowdryers, etc. (all household commodities manufactured during this time). Edward represents the artist who hides from conventional society in a massive run down mansion sculpting garden hedges and ice into creative figurines. The community notices his talent and as a result causes conflict over who gets to him to work on their yard. Given these points of mass production, lack of dynamic/real relationships, and commodity fetishism, we can conclude that industry and capitalism heavily governed suburban society through our final factor of analysis;