1970s Pop Culture

Disco Music during the 1970s Pop culture during the 1970s originated as a consequence of the historical context of the era. The official end of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the Bicentennial of the United States all occurred during this decade. As a result, a variety of social groups such as women, gays and lesbians, as well as racial and ethnic minorities confronted the American conservative ideals that had governed American society since the end of World War II. Conservative white Americans reacted to the civil rights gains that took place in the 1960s and moved to the suburbs of the city, leading to city deterioration. Ultimately the decline of the city allowed for the creation of cultural spaces (disco clubs) that in turn challenged normative American social values. Urban decay led to the growth of disco music. Urban decline is an expression that evokes crumbling infrastructures, abandoned houses, high local unemployment, divided

Back in the 1970s American Society’s wealth was concentrated in white families. The gain of social rights that blacks, women, and gays and lesbians received during the 60s threatened the conservative values that whites had; therefore, during this decade, the United States suffered what is called the White flight: white American people immigrated to the suburbs to maintain the values of an unified family, opposition to abortion, capitalism, and private investments that they had, leaving a desolate, hostile city landscape. The urban decay peaked in the United States when New York City, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Atlanta lost more than 10% of their population as stated by Jordan Rappaport in his article U.S. Urban Decline and Growth, 1950 to 2000. With whites’ money and values leaving, the