Our visit to the Museum of the City of New York was very interesting and informative in terms of the future housing in New York City. The museum had a very good representation of the past, present, and future of the city. I found it interesting to see the population density around the boroughs depending on the lifestyle of the occupants, such as married or single. Although most of the statistics for the neighborhoods in the city were predictable, there were some that were surprising. For example, I did not know that there were as many singles living in Queens as shown at the museum.

For the present, I feel like the museum did a good job showing the regulations and condition that people live in. Many of the regulations that were described during the tour seemed very strange and unheard of, such as the one about the square footage requirement for apartments to follow. I know that many of these regulations were passed because of the transformation that took place in the 20^th century led by journalist Jacob Riis. By showing the poor living conditions that many New Yorkers lived in, he and others exposed the necessity for having certain living condition requirements for safe and healthy measures.

The part of the museum that I found most interesting was of the future for New York City living spaces. The fact that people can be living in more aesthetically pleasing spaces while still maintaining the same costs and efficiency seems like a great idea. Rather than having all the apartments in a line look the same, having differences in them makes them unique and allows for more creativity on the part of the occupant. The models of the buildings helped in visualizing the buildings and the apartments inside.

I also found it very interesting to hear about the plan that Bloomberg is trying to push for the building near Baruch to be built. The fact that the apartments will be build elsewhere and brought to the site of the building seems like a very smart idea to me since it would increase efficiency and save time and energy. The competition that this idea was brought about from was certainly helping since it gave the idea to separate the apartments while making them affordable. This affordable housing will definitely make the building’s apartment availability very competitive and hard to find. During the tour of the museum, I recognized that many of the ideas that people had for future New York City living units were similar to those I’ve seen in pictures of Japan. Since the Japanese make many things compact and try to save space by building things around other things, we can certainly learn and implement some of their design ideas. I was surprised by the fact that a third of New York City’s occupants are single. However the more surprising thing for me was that there were many other major cities that had a higher percentage of singles. I think this is because I live in a family-oriented neighborhood so I tend to see more families, while there are many more people living alone in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The part of the exhibit that I liked best was the sample room that they had showing the future of New York CIty living. The ingenuity that the designers used to design that space was remarkable. The chair that turns into a ladder, bed that comes down from the wall, ottomans that go inside one another to save space, working station that folds down and becomes functional, refrigerator behind the television, expandable eating table, and even the foldable chairs. These are all some of the brilliant things that I found were very useful and saved a lot of space. In the future, as the population in New York City grows, I feel that we will need to become more compact and learn to live in closer living spaces. This sample apartment showed that a small space can be just as functional as a regular sized space. By hiding things in other things, we save space by making things multifunctional so that they can come in use for more than one purpose. For example, the chair can also fold over and become a ladder.

Suburbanization movement was one of the greatest movements that change the housing market of the United States. As more and more families move outside of the city, downtown concentration started to decline and the city was left with old and run down buildings. Although the movement of suburbanization was not completely caused by government actions, many government actions did facilitates the movement of decentralization.

At the beginning, U.S government didn’t want to interfere with the housing market, as the depression worsen, and with the huge foreclosure rate; U.S. government started several housing project that try to influence housing market. Two unsuccessful actions taken by government were Public Law 304 and the Greenbelt Town Program. Public Law 304 failed to provide loans to homeowners, and it made the housing condition even worse.  While the Greenbelt Town Program also failed because of the huge construction cost. Two of the most influential innovations were the Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration.

The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) encouraged people to buy houses instead of renting or improving their current house. However it also indirectly causes the movement of the suburbanization. The HOLC successfully provided long-term mortgage to a lot of homeowners. The HOLC developed its own system of evaluating neighborhoods. “Socioeconomic characteristics of a neighborhood determined the value of housing to a much greater extent than did structural characteristics,” this concept is related to our last reading about the Great Migration. A neighborhood that’s occupied by colored people would decrease its housing value. Also when an African American family moved into a white neighborhood, this neighborhood would soon be completely occupied by African Americans. Most of the African Americans rented an apartment in the city, and I believe that part of the reason White people tend to move outward was that they wanted to be separate from those black people. The HOLC also tend to discriminate against those African American neighborhoods. They rated those neighborhoods as the “D” regions, which were viewed as hazardous and least desirable neighborhoods.

The Federal Housing Administration also shared the similar practices that discriminated against minority. “If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes”. Because of their effort trying to keep segregation between black and white populations, the FHA declined any loan request for neighborhoods with mixed ethnicity. It actually became harder for people to buy houses in the cities because more and more blacks were living in the cities.

It became much more easier for people to move outward. Cheap fuels, mass production of automobiles, and advanced interstate highway allowed people to escape their urban life and enjoy their own space in suburban area. People who lived in city for a long time tend to look for a life in the suburban because city had little room for development; it was crowded by all different kind of people. Therefore, rich families would want to move out of the city and enjoy their own land. I think that suburbanization still happens today but for many different reasons? Such as air population in the city, and desire of being with nature?

When I think of federal funded public housing, my idea of it would be the projects for people to live in. However after reading the article I learn the government didn’t provide public housing to help the poor initially. Rather the first attempt at public housing was to attract people to industrial areas to help create weapons for the war. This surprises me since all my life I never heard a government-sponsored program provide housing for such a reason. It was very interesting to learn this.

The idea that people would buy houses outright seems ridiculous to me unless you were rich. I guess given the values of home ownership back then, buying a house in full payment makes sense. I assume a house was more of a sign of wealth rather than a necessity to people. Although living somewhere is important, a house also symbolized how wealthy. This is true nowadays but the difference is the type of house like if a person has a mansion or not.

After I read about HOLC rating system, it does not surprise me areas African Americans lived were rated the worst. Even though an area was new or if only a few black families lived in a neighborhood, the property values drop. It is sad to know that based on the color of your skin you could devalue an area. Such was the culture of America and still is today but thankfully, to a lower extent.

It is even sadder to know that to avoid losing out in an investment in building areas, the ratio of blacks to whites were carefully looked at by the federal government. The FHA basically promoted segregation with its public policy. The middle class was preferred over the poor and whites over blacks. Some areas were not allowed to get loans.

Although we learned in history the New Deal had policies that saved the country from the Great Depression, which it did, it also promoted racial segregation and was not built on benevolence. It was not to help promote home ownership nor help the poor. Its main purpose was to save the housing and real estate industry. Although I will remember the New Deal as the way to deter the depression, the reading does make me question the aftereffects of important policies.

The chapter “Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream: How Washington Changed the American Housing Market” from Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States by Kenneth T. Jackson contained some very interesting and important points. It described the role the government has played in the housing market, particularly related to suburbanization. I thought it was surprising how much the government influenced the trend of people buying their own homes in the suburbs. I was also surprised by how much of a role racism played in the appraisal of homes by the Home Owners Loan Corporation.

Prior to reading Jackson’s chapter, I hadn’t realized how much mortgages and the concept of home owning were impacted by the Home Owners Loan Corporation. It set an example for long-term loans that make owning a home a reasonable option for many people. Earlier in American history, it was typical for people who owned homes to have bought them outright. Although mortgages became more popular in the 1920s, these mortgages typically had lengths of five to ten years. I had never known this history of mortgages and never realized that the HOLC was the organization that originally provided mortgages similar to those that many people have today.

By making the option of owning homes in the suburbs possible for people, the HOLC greatly contributed to the development of suburbs. I found it interesting how much the government contributed to making this kind of trend in real estate development possible. Many people were critical of the idea of government getting involved in housing. However, when the Great Depression made things worse for people, a significant number of them changed their minds. This type of conflict over whether or not the government should get involved in things is very common and it seems typical that most people favor this involvement only after the issues have gotten worse.

One part of the reading that really made me think was the racism of the HOLC. Jackson describes how areas with African American populations tended to automatically be considered in one of the lowest categories. Reading about this made me wonder whether the appraisers were contributing to the racist attitudes of the time or simply being realistic and responding to those racist attitudes. Since there was definite racism throughout the country at this time and this racism was prevalent in the real estate market, it may have been unrealistic for the HOLC not to take this factor into account when determining the quality of an area for the purpose of real estate values. I do not believe that the intentions of the appraisers were necessarily bad when it came to this topic, however I do think that they did contribute to the racist attitudes of the time.

I found the reading to be thought provoking and relatable to many issues regarding the influence of government. I thought it was unfortunate that the government led the way in housing trends by enabling people to move to suburbs but it simply followed the racial segregation that existed in the housing market.

We all know that many immigrants came to America because of the “American Dream.” Part of this dream included ownership of a house. Many obstacles made this aspect difficult to achieve for many immigrants. However, the government eventually stepped in to increase housing during Hoover’s period. President Hoover believed housing was “the foundation of a sound economic and social system.” (193) In other words, due to poor housing in the country, the United States would collapse and to prevent the country’s downfall the government must step in and aid people in housing. At first I thought that it was ridiculous for the whole country’s development to depend on housing, but thinking about it again Hoover’s words are plausible.

Although the government began to financially become involved in housing during President Hoover’s reign, the first significant government involvement was during World War I. The government established two programs that aimed to provide ‘housing for heads of households moving to industrial areas to produce weapons for the war.’ (192) In a way, I am reminded about the American Revolution when people had to house soldiers in their homes. however in this case, people were provided their own houses. This is the first I have heard that the government provided houses for people to live in while they worked to produce weapons for the war, and I had expected a lot of houses to have been built for this reason. However, Jackson states that not many houses were built; “less than 25,000 units were built in the entire nation.” (192) Many people worked in the factories to produce weapons during the war, so it would seem as if many houses would be built as a result. Surprisingly, it was the exact opposite. It sort of seems that the government was reluctant to establish too many homes, which would make the government appear too involved with housing as Jackson seemed to have hinted at. Although the government was able to step out of housing at this time, the eventually had to take matters into their own hands.

During Hoover’s presidency, the United States was entering the Great Depression, and people turned to the government for help. This became the first actual involvement from the government, which resulted in failure in Hoover’s presidency. Legislation made, such as the Federal Loan Home Bank Act, did not do what they were created to do because of restrictions that prevented many people who needed the help from receiving aid. In an attempt to help, but not provide too much help, the government failed to quickly and efficiently restore the country to stability. President Hoover’s quote appeared to want to fix the housing in the country, but it seems the government did not want to become too involved and had failed as a result. This may have possibly influenced the decisions of a past event.

Not too long ago, there was a financial crisis that was believed to have occurred because of mortgage applications. From what I know, many mortgage applications were accepted when they should not have been when real estate was affordable. As a result of too many mortgages accepted and not enough people qualified to pay it off, many homes were foreclosed and real estate increased. At the same time, the economy was dropping and entering a recession. From this event, Hoover’s words prove to be true that housing is the foundation of the nation’s system.

Had the country not gone through a recession because of the leniency to accept mortgages, I would be arguing that it is too much for the nation’s economic and social system to be so strongly influenced by housing. After all, the country’s gross domestic product contains many different aspects that affect it. But from these two events, it seems that housing is extremely influential.

In “Crabgrass Frontier,” Kenneth T. Jackson discusses the influence that the government had on housing in the 1920s. He mentions how the government encourages businesses to abandon old structures before their useful life is at an end by permitting greater tax benefits for new construction than for the improvement of existing buildings. This is how the government was subsidizing the acceleration rate at which economic activity was spread to new locations. I find this method to be interesting because the modern government does the same thing with investments, such as taxing capital gains and dividend income less than the income tax rate so that more people would invest their money in the markets. This makes it seem like the government, both of the past and current, is able to manipulate the economy and living conditions through certain economic incentives to the public.

Another interesting point was that the first federal housing effort in the United States was to help in the war efforts in 1918. Rather than start as the result of a conscious effort to help the poor or to increase reform spirit, it was done to help provide industrial workers who produced weapons for the European conflict with homes. This makes it less surprising that Americans did not view government intervention in a positive light until the Great Depression in 1929.

Under President Roosevelt, there were several laws passed to help the condition of the American housing market that was in its worst condition in American history. Times like this in American history show when and how a government can be helpful to Americans when they really need it. For example, the Home Owners Loan Corporation introduced, perfected, and proved in practice the feasibility of the long-term, self-amortizing mortgage with equal payments spread over the term of the debt. This new development helped homebuyers get a fair loan that they can pay off over time.

The changes that took place, which allowed homebuyers to buy the house without as much stress as they would have before were drastic improvements. For example, by establishing minimum standards for home construction, provided homebuyers with the satisfaction that their investment would be free of gross structural or mechanical deficiencies. The fact that there were inspections done to supervise the implementation of the law makes it seem like the government really believed that these changes were necessary and needed to be enforced.

The most surprising thing for me was that the FHA was helping the building industry against the minority and inner-city housing market, and its policies were supporting the income and racial segregation of suburbia. That was the first time that the federal government embraced the discriminatory attitudes of the marketplace. The FHA exhorted segregation and covered it up as public policy. This is very surprising to me because I would have never imagined for a government administration to clearly conduct discriminatory practices in public works. Overall, the move from the inner-city neighborhoods to the suburbs was caused in large part by the government’s influence on the American public through its loan system.

It has been ages since the last time the government encourages people to buy houses or even sponsors housing projects. Nowadays the government is still scrambling to clean up the mess that was the housing market after the Great Recession of 2008; federal funded public housing sounds like an impossibility, along with suffering of the lower-classed and less-fortunate people. Yet it was not so back in the booming days of 1920’s, when federal funded public housing was something of a necessity.

In Crabgrass Frontier, the author revealed the real purpose behind the rise in construction of houses back in the days. I was surprised to learn about the government’s real incentive: war. It was ironic, really, supplying the American Dreams of millions through the bullets and bombshells that the dwellers of these housing projects made. These new houses were to serve the workers of weapon factories that shipped thousands of planes and warships overseas. Reading this chapter, my mind flashes back to the American Revolution chapter in the History Textbook when British soldiers were occupying civilians’ houses for the war effort. Toward the end of 1930’s, the government gave weapon makers places to live in. How much the world has changed since then.

It was amazing how the mind of policy makers work, for the housing program was “killing two birds with one stone.” The United States was in the midst of the Great Depression when it got involved in the Second World War, so these housing programs and moving workers into vacant houses in the suburb to build war machines also helped populate the string of falling-priced houses that were hit due to the housing bubble. Amazing as they are, the government was also redeeming itself due to the lack of intervention during the “laissez-faire” era. President Hoover, with legislation such as the Federal Loan Home Bank Act, destroyed the housing market due to loose credit restrictions. An era of too little involvement had to make way for vigilant federal intervention later on during FDR’s.

Another issue that caught my fancy, was the racism of the Home Owners Loan Corporation. Mr. Jackson describes how areas where African Americans populated was always considered to be of the lowest standards. Racism had been prevalent in the real estate market during the time, but I wonder if it was truly for the best interest of the business. Taking into account one’s race, which by the time and even now, was linked to one’s financial standing and credit trustworthiness, I think, is logical for the HOLC to determine the quality and value of an area. It did create a side effect though: intensifying the discriminative environment of the time.

Conclusively, Jackson’s essay is an insightful read for it reflects the enormous power that the government dictated on the housing market at the time while portraying the clash between different racial and ethnic groups due to such federal actions.

As clear and obvious the idea that the government essentially controls our migration patterns is, this thought didn’t occur to me until I read the Federal Subsidiary and the Suburban Dream by Kenneth T. Jackson. What baffled me further was the idea that the government was directly involved in “openly exhorted segregation” regarding giving out loans and building up infrastructure. Essentially, Jackson makes this point that the governments racist public policies that were set have shaped the way the cities have developed today.

His first argument was whether or not it was the governments responsibility to intervene with the housing market in terms of property taxes, loans etc. I feel that over the years America has essentially been gearing towards more socialistic ideals versus democratic because of the increase in government control over our life. However, this isn’t exactly negative because when the government had its Laissez Faire policy the American people, especially the poor, did suffer. If the government had not gotten involved post the depression this country would have fallen apart. This is not Marxism but rather a mixed

Despite the failures of the original housing projects such as the Green Belt town program or the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration policies stuck and carried out because of there leniency in giving out loans. They set the standards by lowering down payments, and setting the concept of appraisals and valuing and rating neighborhoods. I feel as if this was essential to the American suburbanization movement, because without that there was no development and infrastructure for people to move out of the overcrowded cities and into the suburbs.  This idea of valuing homes has definitely become integral in our real estate market today, and has created an entire new sector in our economy.

However, the point that was most striking to me was that initially the Federal Housing Administrators policies were highly subjective and the decisions that the administrators made half a century ago have affected the way the inner cities have developed. By lowering the value of neighborhoods that have more “black people,” the FHA directly gave those people fewer opportunities. The people in those neighborhoods weren’t bailed out after the depression, and therefore the crime rates and infrastructure is worse than other more white suburban locations. Similar to the stories in the Great Migration, these people faced more hardships than others of different races, and the most shocking part is that this was primary because of the government. Of course blacks faced racism, but the government put them in such a position to begin with that certain parts could never rose up after the governments involvement. For instance the example of St. Louis shows how these cities never rose up.

This chapter as a whole by Jackson was very fact heavy and dense to read. It wasn’t an easy smooth read and often Jackson’s points were overshadowed by the amount of facts he included. I think that this is for an educated reader and not someone who knows much background history, and that’s why it was tough for me to get through. The questions I would ask are how do we grow from this and bring back our inner cities? Is there truly a way to deal with housing in an objective manner? Is this segregation ever going to fade away, or will the mistakes of our past never be fixed?

While reading Jackson’s Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream There were three main things that he mentioned that really stuck out to me. The first thing was the concept on whether housing was a problem of the individual or the government. The second thing he mentions which stuck out to me was the mentality of civilians regarding government interaction. Finally the third thing which stuck with me was how socialism and racism still managed to stick their heads into all this.

Now regarding the first point about whether housing is the problem of the government or it’s people, I feel like in order to fully understand this one should turn to the foundation of our government, which is the Declaration of Independence . The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson who was influenced greatly by the writings of John Locke and the Declaration discusses all the natural born rights of all human beings and how it is the government’s duty to protect these rights. The rights written in the Declaration include the rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The last right is the right I would like to focus on, when John Locke wrote this instead of pursuit of happiness he wrote the right to property. Now the fact that Jefferson changed the word property might give some insight as to whether or not it is the right of the government to give the citizens land. Since according to the declaration these unalienable rights must be protected by the government and since property isn’t there I feel this kind of takes the government out of the equation and therefore forces this onto the people and makes it their responsibility. But, this is up for discussion since the more popular reason for the removal of property is because some people might say this gives people the right to own slaves.

Regarding the second point about the mentality of the civilians it didn’t surprise me that up until The Great Depression there was this lack of desire for the government to help with housing. The reason for this is because until things get out of hand or into a really bad situation people don’t wake up and realize that something’s wrong. Take Swine Flu for example, there is a flu season every year and every year people get the flu but that one year where a few extra people died the world bugged out. There was a demand for the vaccine. But, the next year when flu season came about not that many people went for the flu shot. For this reason during the Great Depression when not many people had houses there was a demand for the government to help with houses because when people are in a bad situation, that’s when they wake up. Otherwise they don’t usually care as much.

Finally, Jackson’s talk about Socialism and Racism also stuck out a lot to me while reading this chapter. When a housing project was being start up it was started up in the way of a military initiative the reason for this is because subsidizing houses was seen as a sort of socialistic. Senator Albert Fall of New Mexico viewed this as an attempt “to socialize this Government of ours, to overturn the entire Government of the United States. I just found it a little ironic that this dogma of Socialism wormed it’s way into all parts of the US government, it might be a bit naive but I didn’t feel that socialism became such a big deal until later on in the 1900’s. On the other hand the concept of racism didn’t surprise me at all because the Civil rights movement didn’t happen until about 1955. So, when the chapter said that in Detroit in 1941 when someone built a wall in the middle of a neighborhood to separate the whites from the blacks just so that the whites would be able to get mortgage approved by the FHA, although it seemed stupid because society isn’t like this anymore i was able to understand the time-period the article was referencing.

These three points were the points that stuck out to me the most from this chapter by Jackson. I guess the main reason these stuck out to me is because they seemed the most interesting regarding how society interacted with the government and vice versa. It was impressive in my eyes  how strong this connection between the two are.