Throughout the history of the United States, a long time dream and ambition of the American people has been to own a home. Immigrants from around the world have traveled to the United States with the hopes that they too would attain this dream and that they would one day own a home as well. In his book, “Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States,” Kenneth Jackson discusses the progression of government interference in respect to the housing of the people of the United States. He also talks about how the housing policies of the government affect the the locations that certain groups of people choose to live.
In the article, Jackson mentions that before 1933 the government did not regard the housing and shelter of the American people to be one of its responsibilities. Although they had certain restrictions on how an individual may construct his home and the materials that he may use in doing so, they believed that the “selection, construction, and purchase of a place to live was everywhere regarded as an essentially individual problem.” They believed that it was not their place to get involved and that it was up to the individual to decide where or how he/she chooses to live. When it came to shelter, each person had to fend for himself.
I believed that housing programs were always focused with the intentions of assisting the poor and I was extremely astonished to learn that the first effort to provide housing for individuals came not as a result of poverty but in reaction to World War I. In June 1918, Congress appropriated $110 million to start two separate programs aimed at providing housing for war workers, one of which was the United States Housing Corporation. These programs were focused on providing homes for people who had to move to industrial areas in order to produce weapons for war. The fact that these programs began shortly after the beginning of the war made me realize a very important observation that shapes the behavior of many people. It is human nature to react only once a crisis comes about. Intervention in Housing policy was considered to be an “individual problem” until World War I came about and before this the government was not focused on providing houses to Americans. In fact, even these programs were hampered by opposition who called them socialistic and an “insidious concerted effort to socialize this government.”
This notion that intervention and reaction is mostly brought about due to crisis is further exemplified by the advent of the Great Depression. The book mentions that during the 1920’s the federal government once again adopted a” hands-off policy” when it came to housing the American people. The federal government was looked at as a body or organization whose primary task was to govern, while the task of building houses should be left in the hands of the contractors and builders. However, as the Great Depression began the housing market began to collapse and the American people looked towards the government for assistance. During the time of the Great Depression residential construction fell by 95 percent and in 1932 there were 250,000 foreclosures on homes, compared to a typical year of 68,000. President Hoover understood that he had to do something about this and proposed a federal housing policy aimed at providing housing assistance to the poor.
Another point that Jackson mentions that came as a surprise to me was when he mentions that certain residential areas were discriminated against. For instance cities were given lower ratings than suburban areas and were declared to be ineligible for loan guarantees. This further segregated certain areas as middle and high class residents secured loans and moved to suburban areas, while lower-class residents were forced to remain in the cities. One question I had was how could the government allow that to happen for so long and continue as segregation in the United States strengthened and played a larger role?
