Dream Street

Documenting the birth of a suburb I can think of no other recent account of the suburbs that has the heartbreaking qualities of McCulloh s Dream Street. Only in the novels of the opening of the Great Plains at the turn of the century are the social, economic, and environmental forces that shaped the making of a place so clearly drawn, and on so human a scale. D. J. Waldie, from the Foreword In 1999, author and photographer Douglas McCulloh won the right from a charity auction to name a street in a yet-to-be-developed subdivision in Ontario, California. Curious about the construction process, McCulloh visited Dream Street regularly with his camera and interviewed the workers to chronicle the evolution of this new neighborhood. McCulloh s work centers on the men and women who work in construction and the first-time buyers struggling to purchase a piece of the California dream. As the tract of land progresses from an abandoned strawberry field to a jumble of wooden frames to the prototypical California suburban neighborhood, McCulloh builds a portrait of an industry whose workers most of whom are non-union and poorly paid know the American dream is far out of their reach. Many of the hopeful buyers who visit Dream Street are turned down for loans, as well, and by mid-2008, more than two hundred houses in the surrounding area were in some stage of foreclosure. In the tradition of revered photojournalists such as Robert Adams and Bill Owens, McCulloh s photos and interviews offer an insight into the human side of the process that has changed so much of Southern California from open ranchos to endless city in a single century. A prescient view of the crisis that was to befall America s housing market, Dream Street s story lends authority to the history and fate of Dream Streets everywhere.