Why do U.S. suburbs have aristrocratic British names? The answer lies in the secrets of "real estate branding."
"Anglophilia runs deep in American culture, but it's been particularly useful in helping Americans lay out a fantasy for how they want to live, a measure of wealth and success that's guided urban planners for a century...We anoint our suburbs with the names of invented British estates out of insecurity, nostalgia and a love of fantasy... British names give suburbs an air of, well, suburbanity -- the promise of a retreat from city life, with a connotation of the landed class...Steve Katz, a former real estate marketer and founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, says the English names are a way of masking our uncomfortable proximity to each other...Would people drive home to Arby's Overlook? Balmoral-upon-Interstate 90?"
Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan
Read the full story: Getting uppity in suburbia
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