The ideology of the New Topographics movement was largely a social one. Post-War America struggled in many ways, some being in its capability to urbanise quickly enough to house and transport the ever growing population, limit the rapidly worsening inflation issue and develop more modern attitudes towards the vast emergence of mental illness.

This scramble for suburbia characterised the post-war years, with legislation such as the GI Bill of Rights passed in 1944 which provided monetary means for returning veterans to attend college and purchase homes, allowing them to settle and start families.

The realisation that the American Dream had not been fulfilled was one felt prevalently in this era, with the large expansions within the Civil Rights movement leading to profound progress in legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Within the next 20 years, the Cold War spread fear of Communist ideologies reaching the West as well as the very apparent threat of nuclear war.

With these issues being felt nationally, photographers were inclined to revert away from the idealised landscape photography that had been the primary style for many decades (for example the work of Ansel Adams). They felt that this did not at all accurately portray life in Post-War America and therefore wanted to demonstrate the effects of consumerism and urbanisation on society, this largely through the use of bleak scenes in muted tones to emulate the sad and nostalgic effects.

This coagulated in the form of an exhibition held in 1975 in New York in attempts to bring the nation into the photographers’ minds.