Suburbia: Free Market Shift or Not?

Shayne Graham, free agent NFL kicker: The 20th century American ideal man, complete with two Mercedes and McMansion

I have decided what I am going to write about in the next year as a thesis.

There is much current debate on how America ended up a suburban nation.  Many people argue that the market shifted on its own.  Land ownership, individual freedom and independence became synonymous with 20th century ideals of status and mobility.   And that was no accident.  It was a sign of progress.  Or was it?

Was the shift to cars and suburbia purely a market shift, or was it a result of government or private interest interference?

What was the involvement of auto companies in the early 20th century shift from rail to roads, both for freight and human transport?

Did private interests push government to push a certain way of life?

How did private interests tie American ideals of individual freedom and ownership to car and home ownership?

And now this way of life is being exported on a massive scale to developing countries like China.  So, lastly, how can we help these countries avoid replicating the American 20th century, which ended with a huge global recession*?

*As I read somewhere, the 21st century did not actually start until 2008, much like we now say the 20th century did not start until 1908 with Ford’s introduction of the assembly line.

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