Neal Marlens originally wanted The Wonder Years to be set in Huntington, Long Island. Marlens had grown up there, making the town a natural model for the series’ suburban world and its memories of adolescence.
The finished show never identifies Kevin Arnold’s hometown by name. ABC insisted that the location remain nonspecific so the family’s neighborhood could function as an “Anytown, USA,” rather than being tied too closely to one community. That decision helped the series feel broadly relatable.
The production still drew from several real places. Marlens contributed memories of Huntington, while co-creator Carol Black drew on her childhood in the White Oak section of Silver Spring, Maryland. The fictional setting also contains clues that viewers have interpreted as pointing toward Southern California or New York.
Huntington is sometimes confused with the show’s eventual visual clues, but it was the creator’s preferred original setting—not the officially named location in the story. The Arnold family’s suburb intentionally remains geographically undefined.