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In my childhood in the 1950s, although on the one hand there was de facto racial segregation, in other ways there seemed to be less class polarization (within the white population). I grew in Prince Georges County at the city limits of southeast Washington, D.C. Today this is a very downscale neighborhood with an almost completely African-American population, poor schools, and little shopping.
In the 1950s, however, I remember numerous doctors and dentists lived there, alongside their mixed blue- and white-collar neighbors, in small modest Cape Cod houses, and actually practiced in offices attached to their homes ! ! (I guess for one thing, they were grateful just to be in America, some of them having escaped the Nazi holocaust). We also had many rocket scientists/ physicists who worked at the government research facility, 2 miles away. These people were content to live in very modest homes, and their kids attended school with kids from working-class families. A friend of mine similarly said his childhood physician lived in a working-class row house in Philadelphia near his patients. By today's standards, this would be very odd.
Today, most of the doctors and dentists practicing in my old neighborhood, commute an hour each way from the opposite side of Washington (the north or west suburbs). They demand homes in the very best school districts, with country clubs and golf. Most of the government scientists now commute from across the river in Virginia, or else much further out in outlying Counties. All of this extreme commuting, badly strains the traffic system and the environment/global warming.
I think this really touches on something that has been lost with time. Our society has grown much more stratified in terms of wealth. the rich at the top keep getting richer and richer, miles above everyone else, and the people below them grow farther and farther apart from each other.
It used to be people of different classes enjoyed more or less the same activities and diversions. now, the working and middle classes barely mingle. They live in separate neighborhoods, drive to different malls, shop at different stores, go to different schools and so on. I think people have a lot to learn from those who are different from them, and it's a pity people nowdays seem to only want to live near people just like them.
I think this really touches on something that has been lost with time. Our society has grown much more stratified in terms of wealth. the rich at the top keep getting richer and richer, miles above everyone else, and the people below them grow farther and farther apart from each other.
It used to be people of different classes enjoyed more or less the same activities and diversions. now, the working and middle classes barely mingle. They live in separate neighborhoods, drive to different malls, shop at different stores, go to different schools and so on. I think people have a lot to learn from those who are different from them, and it's a pity people nowdays seem to only want to live near people just like them.
ill get off my soapbox now...
Pre-1960 people didn't drive to different malls. That's because there were virtually no malls. In medium and small cities, everyone went downtown to shop, be entertained, conduct business, etc. The rich, the poor and the middle class all mixed much more frequently than they do now.
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