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Revitalizing Main Street, Usa: Recovering From The American Dream And The Destruction Of The Rural Main Street, Rebecca Virgl
Revitalizing Main Street, Usa: Recovering From The American Dream And The Destruction Of The Rural Main Street, Rebecca Virgl
Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects
The American Dream is a national ethos that states any person, with enough hard work, can succeed in the United States; it is both critique of the pitfalls of capitalism and advocacy of the potentials the system offers. Over time, suburbia has come to represent the physical manifestation of the American Dream. In the world of planning and architecture, much discussion is given to the suburbanization of the United States. The relationship between the city and the suburb is well documented, and many plans for suburban improvements focus on making suburbs more like cities, where they are more walkable, dense, …
Designing The American Dreamscape: Suburbs Of Worship And The American Dream, Rebecca Virgl
Designing The American Dreamscape: Suburbs Of Worship And The American Dream, Rebecca Virgl
Masters in Architecture Program: Theses
This thesis explores suburbia as the physical manifestation of the American Dream as a pseudo-religious system. This religious system and contemporary suburban ideology are explained and disseminated through a historical review and analysis of suburban media. Pop culture serves as a signpost that directs public opinion and cultural value; much of media today wrestles with the ideas of the American Dream, fore fronting these cultural values in our collective identity. Once the baseline of socio-economic religious ideology has been established in the American Dream, the extremes of these beliefs were explored in three suburban environments: home, labor, and retail. Each …