Jim Heartfield wrote: The number of people living in suburbs in the US has exceeded that living in cities since 1970 (US Department of Commerce, Social and Economic Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1974, p 17).
By my reckoning that means a considerable section of the US working class lives in so-called 'suburbs'. People in Britain are pretty snotty about the suburbanites, too. In Hampstead they are very arch about people from Essex and their 'Estuary English', mock-Georgian front oors and so on.
___
Just a comment on the cultural class stereotypes:
In metropolitan Detroit, there are working class suburbs, but in general the suburbanites are the snotty ones in contrast with the City or inner city which is and has the image of Black and working class and poor. "Urban" is a code word for Black or Hispanic today, nationally. "Urban music" is Black music. There was white flight in the 50's, 60's and 70's. This was part of the territorial dispersal of the points of production. This "inner city" image is general around the big cities of the U.S., though Detroit has the biggest Black population percentage.
There are also rich suburbs (Grosse Pointe, Birmingham) . The working class suburbs are a bit better off than the City.
This seems to be somewhat different than what Jim describes in England.
I don't think you could say that car ownership is associated with "working class" and disgust with it as a typical middle class snobbery. Also, the employed working class definitely considers itself "middle class", which really complicates the issue under discussion.
Charles --