With the onset of industrialism in Victorian times, a small revival of arts towns was influenced by William Morris in the UK; and by arts idealists such as Thoreau and Whitman in America, and brought into fulfillment by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright whose influence on supporting the artisan class, their folkish arts, and their use of natural local materials, led to rural revivals of arts towns since the 1970s.
Towards the end of the 19th century industrialism in the late Industrial Revolution was spreading through the South Wales Valleys.
Core characteristics of post-industrialism, as largely defined by the theorist Daniel Bell in his 1973 book The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, include the emergence of a service economy in place of a manufacturing one; the social and economic pre-eminence of the creative, professional and technical classes; the central place of theoretical knowledge as a font of innovation; the strong influence of technology on daily life; and high levels of urbanization.
The American Dream and the dream of "laissez-faire industrialism" is a lie, and is responsible for the endless struggles of modern man.