The advantages and drawbacks of postwar suburbanization fueled debate among social critics and journalists. Harry Henderson began investigating suburban life in 1950 to determine the social effect of suburban living. The following excerpt from an article published in Harper’s reveals Henderson’s opinions on several aspects of suburban life, including home ownership, family life, crime, and community.

At first glance, regardless of variations in trim, color, and position of the houses, they seem monotonous; nothing rises above two stories, there are no full-grown trees, and the horizon is an endless picket fence of telephone poles and television aerials. (The mass builder seeks flat land because it cuts his construction costs.)

However one may feel about it aesthetically, this puts the emphasis on people and their activities. One rarely hears complaints about the identical character of the houses. “You don’t feel it when you live here,” most people say. One mother, a Midwestern college graduate with two children, told me: “We’re not peas in a pod. I thought it would be like that, especially because incomes are nearly the same. But it’s amazing how different and varied people are, likes and dislikes, attitude and wants. I never really knew what people were like until I came here.”

Since no one can acquire prestige through an imposing house, or inherited position, activity—the participation in community or group affairs—becomes the basis of prestige. In addition, it is the quickest way to meet people and make friends. In communities of strangers, where everybody realizes his need for companionship, the first year is apt to witness almost frantic participation in all kinds of activities. Later, as friends are made, this tapers off somewhat. . . .

For the women this is a long, monotonous daily proposition. Generally the men, once home, do not want to leave. They want to “relax” or “improve the property”—putter around the lawn or shrubbery. However, the women want a “change.” Thus, groups of women often go to the movies together.

Usually both husband and wife are involved in some group activity and have meetings to go to. A frequent complaint is: “We never get time to see each other”; or, “We merely pass coming and going.” On the one occasion when I was refused an interview, the husband said, “Gee, I’d like to help, but I so seldom get a chance to see my wife for a whole evening. . . . I’d rather not have the interruption.”

Many couples credit television, which simultaneously eased baby-sitting, entertainment, and financial problems, with having brought them closer. Their favorites are comedy shows, especially those about young couples, such as I Love Lucy. Though often contemptuous of many programs, they speak of TV gratefully as “something we can share,” as “bringing the romance back.” . . .

Crime in Suburbia

Even Levittown, with 70,000 people not far from New York’s turbulent, scheming underworld, has virtually no crime. According to the Nassau County police, who studied one year’s record, it had no murders, robberies, or auto thefts during that period; an average city of that size during the same period would have had 4 murders, 3 robberies, and 149 auto thefts. . . .

Police attribute this lack of crime to the fact that nearly all the men were honorably discharged from the armed services and subjected to a credit screening. This, they say, “eliminated the criminal element and riff-raff.” Some police officials included the absence of slums and disreputable hang-outs as causes. Personally, I felt many more factors were involved, including the absence of real poverty; the strong ties of family, religious, and organizational activities; steady employment; and the absence of a restrictive, frustrating social structure. . . .

Socially, the outstanding characteristic of these people is their friendliness, warmth, and lack of pretentious snobbery. Outgoing and buoyant, they are quick to recognize common problems and the need for co-operation, one does not find the indifference, coldness, and “closed doors” of a long-established community. There is much casual “dropping in” and visiting from house to house which results in the sharing of many problems and pleasures. Often the discussion of a few women over supper plans will end up with four or five families eating together. This may then lead to “fun,” which may be anything from cards to “just talk” or “everybody trying to roller-skate, acting like a bunch of kids.” Nobody goes “out” often. Many report that, as a result of this pattern of living, they “drink more often but get high less” than they used to. Drinking, it seemed to me, had become much more of a social amenity and less of an emotional safety valve than it is elsewhere.

Source: Harry Henderson, “The Mass-Produced Suburbs,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1953, 25–32.