![]() ![]() In 1967, the noted sociologist Herbert Gans, after conducting a series of in-depth interviews, concluded that the residents of the archetypal suburb, Levittown in Long Island, N.Y., were no different than other Americans of the same age, race and class. ![]() His book is an important corrective to most representations of the suburbs, which invariably reduce their contradictory reality to a single meaning. ![]() Waldie insists on neither view, showing that the matter is more complicated and ambiguous than that. ![]() Snobs say, “The suburbs are disgustingly boring.” Populists respond, “This is what people want.” Waldie, raises their interpretation to a new level of art and understanding. As someone who studies and writes about the relationship between ordinary places and everyday life, I felt vindicated by “Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir.” Finally, a book as complicated as the suburbs themselves. ![]()
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