Catherine Bauer changed forever the concept of social housing and inspired a generation of urban activists to integrate public housing into the emerging welfare state of the mid-20th century. She was one of a small group of idealists who called themselves 'Housers' because of their commitment to raising the quality of urban life through improving shelter for low-income families. The story of her life and achievement is full of famous names in art and architecture. Her visionary teachings about the need for housing for the poor and disadvantaged, and the symbiotic relationship between good housing and a healthy society, remain as relevant as ever.

The expansion of the suburban environment is a fascinating cultural development. In fact, the United States is primarily a suburban nation, with far more Americans living in the suburbs that in either urban or rural areas. Why were suburbs created to begin with? How do we define them? Are they really the promised land of the American middle class? The concept of space and how we create it is a concept that is receiving a great deal of academic attention, but no one has looked carefully at the suburban landscape through the lens of fiction and of film.