What is the
American Dream? For many people, it’s a house with a white picket fence where
the children can safely play after they come home from a good school and where
the family gathers to celebrate the small joys of life, i.e. birthdays and
holidays. So many people grew up believing that if they worked hard enough they
could live the American Dream. The last decades have shown, the American dream
is no longer obtainable.
The people
living the American dream were those living in the suburbs, far enough from the
cities to be safe, but usually close enough to be able to commute for work.
According to WNYC’s podcast “Who owns the Deed to the American Dream” from
September 19, 2016, it is the people in Suburbia that own the Deed to the
American Dream. The people who left the cities, starting in the 1950’s, are those
living the American Dream, or at least they thought they were. Lawrence Levy of
Hofstra University claims that the middle-class white nuclear families believed
that “they were safe; they were secure; and, they were segregated”. No one
thought their dreams would end or change so and it is these changes that are
making so many people anxious. They are anxious of what their futures and those
of their children hold. Statistics indicate that on the one hand the costs of
maintaining a home have risen, while at the same time the incomes are no longer
constantly increasing. Politicians are also increasingly pushing the idea of
security, which finds an audience in the suburban homeowner. Whether their
fears are substantiated or not is irrelevant. The deep belief alone is enough
to feed the paranoia.
I grew up
in a suburban town about an hour from New York City and an hour from
Philadelphia, much like the one in Long Island from the podcast. The town once
occupied by Native Americans until it was bought by a settler in the late 17th
Century. Until the 1930’s my hometown was a farming town, then the “white
flight” began. After the second World War housing for veterans was built around
Main Street. Just like in the podcast the population surged in the 1950’s and
1960’s. During this time the population tripled. The last census in 2010
reports that the racial make-up of the town is still predominately white/Caucasian.
My High School graduating class of approximately 550 students had no more than
a dozen African-American students. My parents still live in the house I grew up
in and are considering moving, because of the high property taxes. My Dad’s
police pension seems to be shrinking, which will probably make the decision to
move inevitable. My brother and I have not followed the American Dream; I left
the country looking for adventure and my brother lives with his wife in a city
at New York's doorstep. Maybe they’ll move out of the city when the have
kids.
Links:
Wikipedia, 08 January 2017.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Brunswick,_New_Jersey
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