With a keen 20/20 hindsight some 70+ years later, we can clearly see the many problems caused by the mass post-war migration to suburbia: the sprawl, the highway congestion, the pollution, our Container House growing dependence on foreign oil, the row upon row of almost identical tract houses.

What we seem to have completely forgotten, however, is that in the immediate post-war years a tiny suburban house with its own little parcel of green lawn, some scrawny rose bushes, and two gangly saplings in the front yard was a dream come true for Depression-dazed, war-weary American families.

Our cities were tired, run down and dirty. There had been little new building for two decades. And, no money for repairs. City treasuries during the Depression were mostly bare. City streets were indeed mean: poorly lit and crumbling. There was yet no word for smog, but there was plenty of it — coal was the primary home heating fuel. Rents were high and apartments were small, old, and squalid. Many had no hot water and only limited electricity. The shared bathroom was down the hall. There was no parking for the new cars nearly everyone could now afford.

People just wanted out. They wanted something nicer, cleaner, and newer, with air you could breath and green grass to walk on. And, for $20 in closing costs and a mortgage payment of $57 a month they could have it — a brand new, Cape Cod with its own yard, a modern kitchen with built-in cabinets and appliances, heated tile floors, and central hot water; curbside parking on wide new streets, and abundant privacy ensured by a goodly expanse of green lawn between your house and your neighbor's.

And, the name of this Modified Shipping Container Home place where the American dream finally came true was....