Quote:
Originally Posted by 10023
It’s a shame that they didn’t just use America’s renewed wealth and prosperity to make up for those 15 years of poverty and a war economy, rather than building a bunch of shitty Levittowns and shopping malls.
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A lot of peope saved a lot of money during the war years because wages actually rose (for those left at home working) but there was nothing to spend it on. That's why people could afford the new cars that came back into production (my parents traded in their 1941 LaSalle for a 1949 Chevy) and houses in the Levittowns which they considered a big improvement from a cramped city apartment. I know my family of 4 was living in a one bedroom apartment until we moved to a 3 bedroom suburban split level. I remember having to wait for my grandparents to come take me to the city park to get outside until we moved to the new house with a large, fenced backyard and very little traffic to worry about anyway.
So what you consider "shitty", while perhaps eating your salad of French tomatoes, was considered anything but by the people of the time, adults and kids. Actually, for the kids the suburbs of the 1950s were something of a paradise--we all had bikes we could ride anywhere, there were nearby forests to explore because the housing developments hadn't yet bulldozed everything, the ice cream truck came by every afternoon and our parents let us stay out "until the streetlights come on".
Oh, and I had a go-cart I could race on the newly-paved-but-still-closed-to-traffic Washington Beltway after the construction crews had gone home.