Important Note:

Opinions are fun. My friends tell me I am someone with lots of opinions and that's fine since I don't get mad at others when they disagree with me. In this same spirit I am interested in hearing yours views as long as you are able to share your views without boiling over. I look forward to hearing from you. I tend to write in the form of short essays most of the time, but contributions do not need to be in this same format or size. Some of the content here will date itself pretty quickly, other content may be virtually timeless, this is for the reader to judge.

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Is the American Dream alive?                                                                                    

Posted at: Jun/16/2009 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: Watching America,

I guess we should start with a definition. Since I am doing the writing, I get to do my own definition. I believe that the American Dream is a belief that the freedoms granted to all citizens and residents of the United States provide us with an opportunity to potentially achieve any goal through our own personal hard work that we set our sights on. The most common manifestation of the American Dream is the ownership of a home or land. I suppose this accounts’ for the term “dream house”.

I don’t have any actual numbers on percent of home ownership per capita or similar statistics. I suspect that personal home ownership peaked in the 1950’s or 1960’s. I also suspect that the actual numbers would be surprisingly low. So if the percentage of success at this dream is relatively low, why keep trying? My belief is that the underlying foundation of the American Dream is optimism. There is still always the chance I can achieve this goal. I have to admit, I to am an optimist. I am a perennial believer in the possibility that things will be better tomorrow than they are today. In truth, I find a lot to be positive about right now, but that is fertilizer for another essay.

Despite my optimism, I see a cultural shift applying new pressure to the viability of the American Dream. For most of our American history we lived and worked in one community. Many of us had parents who worked for 30-40 years at the same employer. This long term employment made home ownership easy because there was very little risk of needing to sell just a couple of years after buying. Even if our parents changed jobs once or twice, they generally stayed in the same community which again made that long term ownership less risky.

Times have changed. It is very likely for the current generation that they will have to change jobs 4 times or more in their professional life. But changing jobs is not the challenge. The challenge is geographic mobility. It is very likely that with each job change there will be a relocation of 500 to 1500 miles. The relocation means selling the previous home and buying another. Unfortunately, most homes appreciate at a slow enough pace that when you factor in realtor fees and such the home become a money loser. This financial burden is forcing many people who own homes to not make the career moves. For the people without homes, the rental market is giving them the career and general job flexibility.

The American Dream is about optimism. Whether owning a home, having your own business, sending the kids to college, or generically wishing for your children more success and prosperity then yourself, the dream lives. We may be seeing a transition away from home ownership being integral to the dream. Still, the American Dream is about optimism for the future. As Americans we have not, and I believe will not lack for optimism. It is always easy to find a purpose and a focus for our optimism.

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