“...while suburbanites have become more prosperous, they have also become more anxious about their standard of living. This greater affluence is largely due to women working. While the suburban women of the 1950s were overwhelmingly homemakers, women today also work full time outside the home. In fact, the younger the couple, the greater the likelihood of the wife working. The result is that the couple has more money but also more stress. There is simply not enough free time. Because people are busier, there is less time for the socializing that was so often seen as characterizing the suburbs of the 1950s. There is now less social cohesion and sense of common community, but also less conformity--that is, if one accepts that living a life-style where everyone is concerned about self-advancement isn’t conformity.” (100) What began as a move to comfort in the suburbs (when it was possible to live a middle-class lifestyle on one paycheck) increasingly becomes an attempt at moving upward. The myth of the suburb remains alive, but becomes rather something we “might have” one day, rather than something we “can have” today.

(Palen, J. John. The Suburbs. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995. Print.)