After the World War II production and agriculture growth was matched by changes in Americans' buying habits and lifestyles. For many Americans the post-war economic boom brought what the economist John Kenneth called the "affluent society". In the
affluent post-war years Americans could afford to satisfy desires for a home or a car that they had had to stifle during the Depression and the war. If they happened to like the cash, they tended to borrow it. This was the economic basis of the consumer culture. Advances in public health were a particularly beneficial fact of post-war prosperity. The average life span increased from 65,9 years in 1945 to 70,9 in 1970. A major reduction in the infant mortality rate was achieved through regular prenatal and pediatric care. Millions of Americans began their search for share in prosperous society by migrating to the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt encompassed the area running from Southern California to the Atlantic coast. Millions of people left the chilly industrial cities of the North-East for the sunnier climate as well as higher economic potential of the Sunbelt states.
The post-war economic boom was a good time for unionized blue-collar workers, many of whom enjoyed a middle class lifestyle. Because most union jobs brought money these workers obtained mortgages for suburban homes, especially if their wives were also working. Many enjoyed job security, paid vacations arid retirement plans. Blue-collar workers were more secure against inflation if they joined trade unions. The post-war age of abundance brought about the age of suburban lifestyles. A combination of motives drew people to the suburbs. Many felt like leaving behind the sounds and smells of the city and being closer to Nature. Or they wanted the privacy and quiet that detached homes provided as well as family rooms, extra closets and utility rooms. Many were also looking for a community of like-minded people, a place they could have a measure of socializing. In the suburbs citizens could become involved in politics and have an impact, particularly on the education their children received. Indeed, the general welfare of children was the major concern of the suburbanites.
But socially the suburban emphasis on family togetherness tended to isolate families. Some Americans were inclined to criticize the decentralization of leisure in the suburbs as a home itself, rather than the neighborhood, became the chief gathering place of the family. It was either in the family room with its games, TV and informality or outdoors around the barbecue. The suburban culture at whose center was the television enthroned on a swivel was suited to the stay-at-home lifestyle. Even when families traveled, they were isolated in the family car. Those American men and women who had been children and adolescents during the economic deprivation of the 1930s, who had experienced separation from friends and family caused by World War II became exponents of suburban "family togetherness".
The economic prosperity that marked the post-war era was reflected in the materialistic values and pleasures of the period. Having satisfied their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter, growing number of Americans turned their minds to luxury items. The quest of middle class families for the latest luxuries made shopping a form of recreation. Of the luxuries, television was the most revolutionary in its effects. But despite the lure of the television, book readership went up. The reason for that were inexpensive paper-back books. One obvious casualty of the stay-at-home suburban culture was the motion picture (the cinema). Movie theaters were steadily closing, with a notable exception of the drive-in, which appealed to car-oriented suburban families.
The lives of most Americans in the 80s-90s are characterized by three stable national characteristics, which dated back to the beginning of the nation, (the colonial times and the frontier experience). These are: friendliness to strangers, a strong sense of community, and neighborliness and general informality. It was the brutal reality of the frontier life that shaped the American traditions of hospitality. Today there are many charitable organizations, which look after "weary travelers". Yet the old traditions of taking care of strangers are still very strong in the USA. Neighborliness (or getting along with your neighbors and helping one another in many small ways within a community) affects the American lifestyles in two basic ways. On the one hand, Americans have become adept at making new acquaintances and forming new friendships with their neighbors. But on the other, most American homes are isolated and separated from one another by fences, hedges or even walls.
Thus, the mental barriers are traditionally well understood and respected in the US. American informality of the 80s and 90s recalls not only the frontier experience but the whole heritage of immigration. The immigrants came to the New World to break down social and class barriers; the revolution had done away with titles of nobility and with hereditary aristocracy in general. As a result, Americans have retained until now the less constrained and more informal attitude to other people. The present day habits of informality are however counterbalanced by restraints on it. There are topics, such as income, religion, politics that many Americans do not feel comfortable discussing in a casual conversation. Those who insist on formal address are often thought to be pretentious and are often targets for humor. As far as specifically American types of humor, they too have been produced by the frontier experience. For instance, the form of humor called "kidding around" or "putting someone on" is part of the daily life of many Americans.