The Rise and Fall of the American Suburbs w/ Kyle Riismandel

The Road to Now

Benjamin Sawyer

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the years after World War II, Americans moved to the suburbs in search of the peace and safety that many came to equate with the "American Dream." By the end of the 1970s, however, suburbanites had come sense that their privileged was under siege from satanic cults, drug dealers and kidnappers. In this episode, Bob and Ben talk w/ Kyle Riismandel whose new book Neighborhood of Fear examines how Americans responded to the real and perceived threats of suburban life and in doing so, shaped American society and politics in the late-20th Century and beyond.

Dr. Kyle Riismandel is Senior University Lecturer and Interim Director of the Law, Technology, and Culture Program in the Federated Department of History at the New Jersey Institute of Technology/Rutgers-Newark and Director of the Graduate Program in American Studies. His book Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975-2001 was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2020.

This is a rebroadcast of RTN #194, which originally aired on April 12, 2021.

This episode was oroginally edited by Gary Fletcher. This reair was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now.
0:09.1	Bob and I are taking another week off here and we are excited to re-air this episode from
0:13.7	2019, our conversation with Kyle Rees-Mendell about the history of American suburbs and how
0:19.4	suburbs went from being a safe place where affluent Americans largely white fled so that they could get away from the troubles of the inner city decaying infrastructure, environmental pollution, and became a place that themselves were gripped with the fear and the panics that were sweeping America in the 1970s and 80s.
0:36.7	It's a powerful story and understanding
0:38.8	just how we got here right now with so much fear in the way that a lot of our politics is structured.
0:45.0	And so it's a really amazing episode for wrapping your head around a lot of the
0:49.2	unfortunate turns that have happened in America's story in the last few decades. And hopefully,
0:56.0	knowing the backstory will help us get out of it. Bob and I will be back next week with a new
1:00.0	episode with Roger McNamee, who you may recall wrote the book Zuckt. We had him on in 2020. He
1:06.7	mentored Mark Zuckerberg. Amazing episode back then, and I'm very excited to catch up with him and talk about some new tech developments and some other questions I have about the past and what led us here today with the AI out of control.
1:19.6	And no one seems to want it to happen, but it's happening anyway because in America, if money wants something and money gets it, I guess.
1:26.1	Anyway, so we'll be back next week.
1:28.0	Patrons, thank you so much.
1:30.3	We've got some exciting news coming up in the next few weeks, and we will launch it there
1:35.3	first.
1:36.2	If you're already supporting us, thank you so much.
1:38.3	If not, go check us out, patreon.com slash the road to now.
1:42.8	Literally, patrons, you keep us going going and we are so grateful to you.
1:46.6	And we hope all of you enjoy this great conversation with Kyle Rees-Mandelle about his book,
1:52.3	Suburbs of Fear. Take care.
1:58.6	We're rocking the suburbs, Bob.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Benjamin Sawyer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Benjamin Sawyer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.