This paper is re-examines the broadly-shared images of the working-class suburban society as a monotonous and closed single-class society and the so-called “suburban neurosis”, using a record of social survey taken in Basildon New Town, Essex, a representative of the newly-designated suburban estates in the 1940s. Considering three aspects of housewives' living — women's working, shopping and leisure – in the new town, this paper suggests the variety of the new town lifestyles and, at the same time, a limited scope of activities of housewives with infants. Their complaints showed a few defects of the physical environment of new towns, but the problem was exaggerated by the biased composition of residents — many young mothers among residents.
