Scourge of the Suburbs: Knock down and Rebuild

Goodbye houses with character and a decent front and back garden in the suburbs. Hello McMansions.

In Australia the average family size in 1966 was 3.5 people, now it's around 2.4. How come houses are getting bigger? Now people MUST have at least 4 bedrooms, home theatre/rumpus room, study, an outdoor room (because there's only a pocket handkerchief sized backyard) and a butler's pantry/second kitchen for Christ sake. More to heat, cool, clean and maintain. What will these McMansions look like in 50 years' time? 

Us working class baby-boomers lived in the family 3 bedroom house - all crowded around the black and white telly in the lounge ("the good room").

Established trees are chopped down. With no space for an established garden, our suburbs are becoming soulless, no longer homes for native wildlife and hotter in summer. 

New owners are either time-poor (too busy paying off the mortgage to devote time to gardening) or have no desire to keep up a garden.

1964 - a good year for films

From a baby boomer's perspective, 1964 had some outstanding (English speaking) movie releases.
Here's my top 10 (in no special order, last 4 are strictly guilty pleasure flicks):

• "My Fair Lady"
• "Fail Safe"
• "Seven Days In May"
• "Goldfinger"
• "Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"
• "The Pawnbroker"
• "Marnie"
• "The Fall of the Roman Empire"
• "The Carpetbaggers"
• "What a Way to Go!"

50 movies that shaped the baby boomer generation - from "A Summer Place" to "Summer of '42"

I was born in 1956. Baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964 according to U.S. Census definition. Most of the films listed are Hollywood produced. During this period, movies reflected changing mores and social change.

This film listing is from 1959 to 1972

My coding is as follows:

B = Big Box Office popularity
G = Ground breaking movies, taboos broken - sex/violence/language on the screen
A = Art house, new trends, political/social comments


1959 "A Summer Place" G
"Some Like It Hot" B, G
"Pillow Talk" B
"Imitation of Life" B
"North By Northwest" B

1960 "Psycho" G
"The Magnificent Seven" B
"The Apartment" G
"Spartacus" B

1961 "West Side Story" G, B
"La Dolce Vita" A, G

1962 "The Manchurian Candidate" G
"Lolita" G
 "To Kill A Mockingbird" G
"Lawrence of Arabia" B

1963"The Great Escape" B
"Tom Jones" G
"Dr No" B
"8 1/2" A

1964 "Dr Strangelove, Or: How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" A
"A Hard Day's Night" G, B
"Goldfinger" B

1965 "For a Few Dollars More" G
1966 "A Man and a Woman" A

1967 "Bonnie and Clyde" G, A
"The Graduate" G, B
"Blow Up" G, A
"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" G
"In the Heat of the Night" G

1968 "Bullitt" G
"Rosemary's Baby" G
"Planet of the Apes" G
"2001: A Space Odyssey" G, A
"Midnight Cowboy" G
"The Producers" G
"Night of the Living Dead" G

1969 "The Wild Bunch" G
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" B
"Easy Rider" G
"Alice's Restaurant" A, G

1970 "Woodstock" G
"M*A*S*H"  G, B
"Five Easy Pieces" A

1971 "Dirty Harry" G
"The French Connection" G, B
"Shaft" G
"A Clockwork Orange" G, A
"The Last Picture Show" G
"Summer of '42"  B

1972 "The Godfather" B, G