| In the late 'teens, Henry Ford relocated his industry to a Detroit suburb called Dearborn, turning it into a site of the "American dream," where working-class people became car-owners, home-owners and suburbanites. In fact, the ability of wage-earners to attain such a life was an integral part of "Fordism," which linked together not only mass production and mass consumption, but also mass suburbanization. All the same, Dearborn was far from truly inclusive. Although it was a suburb for the masses in the sense that it contained a large population of working-class residents, the vast majority of Ford workers did not live there. For less skilled workers, this was because they could not afford to do so; meanwhile, African-Americans were excluded by de facto and de jure means. To workers who resided in Dearborn, however, the community represented a path to upward mobility.;Soon, the arrival of the Depression threatened the way of life Ford workers had come to embrace. In response, they went on strike and won a contract unprecedented in its favorability to labor. Unionization functioned to hasten suburbanization since wage-earners were increasingly empowered with the financial means to relocate out of the city. Here the exception was black workers who continued to be mostly barred from the suburbs. Plus, trends started in the twenties---such as the displacement of transit by the automobile and the decimation of the central city by deindustrialization---continued unabated. Ultimately, these inequities contributed to Detroit's urban crisis of the sixties.;The case of Dearborn raises the question as to whether mass suburbanization originating in the twenties---and revived in the postwar period---can be said to represent an achievement of the "American dream," and if so, by whom and at what cost. In retrospect, Dearborn can be seen as a precursor to Levittown, an archetypal community that attracted a broad middle class which was nonetheless segregated by race. Altogether, Dearborn anticipated the high level of consumerism, declining significance of class, ongoing racial division, dependence upon the automobile, and central-city divestment that are still associated with typical American suburbs. |
