On the other side sit the New Urbanists planners, who spent much of the 1990s denouncing suburbia as a junk landscape programmed to produce alienation and political backlash. They propose traditional architecture, rear laneways, porches and compact development to counter such programming. But Baxandall and Ewen flatly reject the view that sprawling suburban design by itself creates social dysfunction. Indeed, they argue that the 1950s suburbanites took it upon themselves to develop community institutions to compensate for the dearth that existed when they arrived on Long Island. The misapprehension of suburban life, however, is not only the purview of the urban, intellectual left.
Suburban conservatives are guilty, too.
Like Baxandall and Ewen, Dale found that his experiences living in a private enclave in San Diego bumped up against his preconceived ideas. People will think that the houses are all the same, therefore the people will be. His neighbours harboured a broad range of political opinions and cultural tastes, although they seemed united by the stresses that afflict young families in a setting where car travel consumes enormous quantities of time and money. Their concerns fixed on the future of local schools and reports of assaults against children by their nannies. For Baxandall and Ewen, the suburban stereotype obscures the social achievements of suburbanites.