Suburban tract development directly drove the postwar automobile and appliance booms

Evidence

The building boom that began in the late 1940s answered the question. Though Nathan did not make the point, the production of houses, automobiles, electrical devices, schools, and hospitals went hand in hand. Because the cheapest and largest tracts of land lay at the urban fringe, the residents of postwar subdivisions and suburbs depended on the automobile for transportation. Nearly nine of ten suburban families owned cars, in contrast to just six of ten urban households, and a much higher percentage of suburban families had two cars. The rise of tract-house methods of development thus helped the automobile industry put the pedal to the metal: Automobile production jumped from 2 million in 1946 to 8 million in 1955. The housing boom also boosted sales of household goods. In the five years after World War II, consumer spending increased 60 percent, but the amount spent on furnishings and appliances rose 240 percent. Lawn mower sales jumped nearly tenfold, from 139,000 in 1946 to roughly 1.3 million in 1951. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 155

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Suburbanization restructured space to make car and oil consumption a necessity — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 577; Postwar housing development sharply raised environmental costs that people then politicized — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 15

Broader Connections

• Suburbanization restructured space to make car and oil consumption a necessity #expands (0.85) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 577
• Postwar housing development sharply raised environmental costs that people then politicized #expands (0.80) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 15