The New American Dream

Here's one such trendsetter who's living that what-rush-hour? New American dream standard, with an office full of employees by day that transforms into a home by night. Owned by nationally-renowned marketing guru Faith Popcorn, in her words, "I used to rush to and from home and work and never be happy with whichever place I was in. It felt as if I was always supposed to be in the other place. I finally gave up this idea of a line between office and personal."

In continuation of yesterday's blog, a few years ago I suggested to Richard Florida that he name his book The New American Dream. Why? Because he asked. It was actually the working title until his publishers went with the more targeted title of The Rise of the Creative Class. However, this lofty vision is fleshed out in this recent article of his that crystalizes the true American Dream of working for ourselves (or at least under our own terms), and how that requires evolving the country's mass-production-based infrastructure. In the meantime, fellow Washingtonian Dan Pink pain-stakingly researched this shift in his own terms, and one of my long-time good friends and mentors, Andres Duany meticulously articulates how better planning in our cities and towns can accommodate this in his book Suburban Nation.