Arcadia in Suburbia: Orange County, California

Abstract

Arcadian themes, long pervasive in American life, have surfaced with increasing frequency in the suburban landscape of Orange County, California. Fears and uncertainties concerning both present and future have provoked the seeking of security and purity in an idealized agrarian past. Country living is avidly promoted in a variety of media and is expressed in the “countrification” of new housing developments through the use of arcadian imagery and symbolism in advertising, project settings and housing design. Spatial variation, in terms of the type and intensity of imagery and symbolism employed, is correlative with cost and locational factors.