ABSTRACT
In the United States, the two decades following the Second World War are commonly regarded as the period when suburbanization first seized the public imagination. They also happened to coincide, for the most part, with a stiff political reaction against the progressive elements of the New Deal. Led by big business and marked by major assaults on labour, not least the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, and then bolstered by McCarthyism, the way was paved for a Republican hegemony. In some minds the two facts of suburbanization and a shift to the right were connected. This generated a debate among political scientists and particularly those interested in voting behaviour. Did increasing suburbanization, therefore, imply a long-term tilt to the advantage of the Republicans? Or could any contextual effect be disregarded in favour of one that emphasized the socially selective nature of suburbanization, so that explanation for the Republican resurgence had to be found elsewhere?
