Suburbia Regnant

Suburbia has long had a special place in American social mythology. Its chroniclers in fiction are John Cheever and Peter De Vries, its poet laureate Phyllis McGinley. The $50,000 split level is its castle, the barbecue chef its master of the revels, the station wagon its chariot, the 8:03 or the clogged expressway its cup of doom. Few modern Americans feel much nostalgia for the farm or the small town, and most now find the once glittering big cities tarnished with decay. The pull of the suburb has been so strong that suburbanites are becoming the most numerous element in the U.S. population. According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, in 1970 suburban dwellers will number more than 71 million, taking a big lead over those inhabiting central cities (59 million) and passing the citizenry outside metropolitan areas (about 71 million).

With that many Americans in the suburbs, the myth has shattered in diversity. Suburbia is something more than the stereotype of buttoned-down Wasp commuters and wives who slurp "tee many martoonis" at the country club. "Gary is as much a suburb of Chicago as Evanston," says Political Analyst Richard Scammon. The suburbs have become increasingly heterogeneous with the influx of blue-collar workers who now have middle-class incomes and attitudes. As Scammon puts it: "Workers now aren't concerned about Taft-Hartley; they're concerned about crabgrass." Along with crabgrass, ironically, come many of the problems that the new white suburbanites left the center cities to escape: higher property taxes, overcrowded schools, inadequate transportation--and racial unrest, triggered by the presence of blacks who have also fled to the suburbs.

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