Media depictions of community are enormously influential on wider popular opinion about how people would like to live. In this study, Rowley examines depictions of ideal communities in Hollywood films and television and explores the implications of attempts to build real-world counterparts to such imagined places.
Introduction: Visions of community -- Movie towns -- Sitcom suburbs -- The bad suburb -- The fake town -- Constructing the movie town -- Deconstructing the movie town -- Conclusion: The perpetual suburb.