Liminality and the Triple Dream: Streetcar and PostWar Suburbs

The built landscapes that developed across American time and place are among the most significant resources of social history. Dell Upton has referred to architecture as an art of this sort of social storytelling. With Upton in mind, suburbs become a particular landscape of interest because of their place between the city and country, the rich and the poor. As liminal vernacular landscapes, both streetcar and post­war 'sitcom' suburban developments represent the built manifestations of the desire for home­ownership and social well­being by the working and middle class of America