Word: suburbanity
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...point, Deliverance can bear comparison with both books. Ultimately, it fails where they succeed. Dickey's spare narrative-leisurely at the start, then frantic-rushes the reader forward like the accelerating flow of the river. Whether he is describing the soft but fond suburban world that the four men leave at home, or evoking the impact of the plunging water, his language has a descriptive power not often matched in contemporary American writing...
...change that many planners would like to see is creation of regional authorities to control zoning. Davidoff advocates a regional or statewide authority that would tax an entire greater metropolitan area, thus exposing the real costs that suburban living imposes on the central city. Such a regional tax, he argues, would eliminate the need of local communities to protect real estate and property tax values and therefore would do much to open up suburban land, money and jobs. "There is no chance to rebuild the inner cities," he says, "unless we can use the resources of the suburbs...
...fortunate, for today it is the black American who puts pressure upon the nation to live up to its ideals. It is he who gives creative tension to our struggle for justice and for the elimination of those factors, social and psychological, which make for slums and shaky suburban communities. It is he who insists that we purify the American language by demanding that there be a closer correlation between the meaning of words and reality, between ideal and conduct, our assertions and our actions. Without the black American, something irrepressibly hopeful and creative would go out of the American...
...setting, blacks are still constantly mistaken for the help, or worse. Passing through the basement garage of his Chicago office building, one black journalist is often asked to park cars, even though he is wearing a business suit. When he putters around the yard of his house in suburban Scarsdale, a New York dentist is invariably asked by delivery men for the "madam." She's not at home? How about "the man of the house"? The "gardener" says, "Wait a minute," goes through the back door and emerges at the front, getting a little of his own back...
Social restraints on blacks greatly influence what they buy. Given a hard time buying suburban homes, many blacks find compensatory status in owning impressive cars. Clothing is another available outlet for funds; among Americans with incomes of $7,500 and above, blacks spend 45% more on apparel and 23% more on shoes than whites. Economic necessity prompts blacks to spend proportionately more on food, soft drinks and household furnishings-and less on medical care, car maintenance and books...