ABSTRACT
American domesticity, if culturally located in the suburbs, takes on distinctive qualities in cities, nowhere more so than in New York. The quintessential urban characteristics of density, proximity, ambiguity, and diversity play havoc with the conventional suburban ideal of self-sufficient families, each one comfortable in a spacious dwelling which provides for every need. Domesticity in New York is necessarily more contingent and crowded, less clearly bounded by architecture or activities.
