ABSTRACT
The post-Second World War baby boom and the suburbanization that it fostered transformed twentieth-century society and created a new metropolitan landscape. But now, more than fifty years later, should we consider that landscape of sufficient historical significance to warrant preservation? Certainly, if the buildings and landscapes that are considered for preservation are those associated with nationallysignificant events and embody important cultural values in their design and construction, then the post-Second World War landscape deserves preservation in some form. This is the landscape of the American Dream, of the single-family house on its own lot sited within the large-scale, self-contained subdivision with a curvilinear street pattern (Ames, 1995). As Richard Longstreth (1992, p. 219) has pointed out, ‘never before has such a great segment of society been able to partake of this kind of environment, nor will it again in the foreseeable future’. Yet, to consider preserving the suburban landscapes of the post-Second World War era, and even earlier ones, raises a number of questions about both the practice of historic preservation and the state of academic knowledge about the history of suburbanization needed to interpret their significance.
