Suburbia

The suburban lifestyle has changed drastically from when they were first really introduced in the 1950’s. They first started appearing after World War II when all of the soldier’s came home from the war. As shown in the video “1950’s”, the American Dream for everyone was to settle down in a nice suburban lifestyle and have a good job with a nice family. It was the year where people were starting to adjust to a life after the war and move on. Brand new inventions emerged like the plastic bag, microwave, and barcodes. Starting in 1950 and lasting until 1964, there was a boom in the increase of babies countrywide. It was a time where people were having babies right after the war. It became the era called the “Baby Boom” era. It also shows at the end how while the white folks were living perfect lives, the blacks were being abused and tortured. It’s a great representation of how the 1950’s was the start of the change of the country.

The video “Radiant City: Suburban Landscape” describes the way people got things back in the early days and up until now. People who built the cities decided to place everyday needs like gas and food stores far apart from each other. This was a way for people to keep buying gas and traveling around their suburban lives. This is also a huge contributor to global warming. Forcing people to travel from one place to the next just makes them use gas more and more. This resulted in more emissions of carbon dioxide, resulting in more greenhouse gases which is not at all what people were expecting back in the 1950’s when they first thought of this idea.

The other video, “Gangs and White Flight” created a huge contribution to global warming. In the video, they talk about how whites were first adjusting to the addition of black residents. They didn’t like how they were moving in and going to their schools so some had decided to take action. White gangs were created in response to their new residents. A gang called the Spook Hunters attacked black residents. This resulted in violent crimes and blacks to create their own gangs in retaliation. Having black gangs scared most of the white residents in the suburban area, causing them to move farther away. This forced the white’s to build new houses, use more supplies and create a whole new settlement away from the blacks. Creating a new city just because they were scared of the blacks was a dumb idea for the whites. They wasted tons of resources to restart their community and this resulted in problems that we face today like global warming.

Work Cited:
Racism Divides the Working Class - Gangs and White Flight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVHMJz0IYQM
Radiant City: Suburban Landscape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCeWCVWZbdo&feature=fvw
1950's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhKhA2w4cXs&feature=related