Italian Americans in the Suburbs

With more Americans living in the suburbs than in the city in the post–World War II period, the suburbs were idealized as a “manifestation” of the “fundamental characteristics of American society.” ¹ A new mainstream narrative had two interrelated sociocultural themes. The suburbs were imagined as “the distinctive residential landscape” of an expanding middle class defined by consumption. ² And middle class suburban lifestyles were believed to afford an opportunity to jettison European ethnicities embedded in the city for “the white house.” ³