the -ism on display in the second photo is racism.
You can definitely go into the deep history of Levittowns, Master Planned Country Club communities, and Red Lining in the big metro areas. But I think the advent of the modern suburb speaks more heavily to the mix of “Free Real Estate” and enormous state subsidies for rural development following the S&L crash of the 1980s.
Like, there’s no reason these can’t be high rise condos with racist building managers, rather than cookie cutter ranch homes with racist HOAs. The suburb isn’t merely about racial segregation, it is about individualist alienation. Breaking up the extended family unit into the nuclear family cluster, subdividing the working class into thinner and thinner economic tranches, and fencing people into gilded cages complete with 30 year golden handcuff mortgage notes.
You can debate over the exact degree to which civic planners intended to separate and capture individual specimens of human labor. Or how deliberately the 1950s architectural model of personalized kitchens, TVs, and car ports manufactured an increasingly pliable working class subject. But the subdivision doesn’t end at the color line. We are a fully balkanized society.
We don’t have to debate to what extent civic planners intended to divide people by color. In his book, The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein just straight-up quoted them. They weren’t shy, and they wrote it down in memos, meeting minutes, and even speeches.
That’s why I say that the suburbs are a product of racism… because the people who created them intended them that way, and said so.
For the economic analysis from the class perspective, look at why suburbs became entrenched, which has a lot to do with the auto industry.
Yeah, my wife and I moved in with my parents ~ 8 years ago while I was between jobs, and because we all get along it has been such a lovely experience (especially during the pandemic!) that we have never felt a need to move back out. A couple of years ago my uncle moved in because his house was unlivable, and being able to spend time with him has been nice too.
On the other hand, I did also like living by myself, and later just with my wife, for a while, so that I could have my own personal space and privacy. I think I would have felt resentful if I were forced into a particular living situation rather than being able to choose it.
I think I would have felt resentful if I were forced into a particular living situation rather than being able to choose it.
I mean, we’re all forced into a living situation that our budgets and our work-life demands. The illusion of choice is going to a real estate agent and seeing twenty different near-identical overpriced units, then making a dubiously informed decision that’ll lock you into 30 years of debt.
I’d love to live in a crystal palace on a tropical island next to a rail station that’s thirty minutes east of midtown Manhattan and an hour west of the Vail chairlifts which runs me $99.50/mo for the note. No amount of resentfulness will give it to me.
We’re already seeing them pop up wherever real estate prices go vertical.
But dense housing builders are constantly at war with suburban city planners. Getting permits is an increasingly Kafka-esque endeavor, unless you can buy yourself an exemption through municipal corruption.
You can definitely go into the deep history of Levittowns, Master Planned Country Club communities, and Red Lining in the big metro areas. But I think the advent of the modern suburb speaks more heavily to the mix of “Free Real Estate” and enormous state subsidies for rural development following the S&L crash of the 1980s.
Like, there’s no reason these can’t be high rise condos with racist building managers, rather than cookie cutter ranch homes with racist HOAs. The suburb isn’t merely about racial segregation, it is about individualist alienation. Breaking up the extended family unit into the nuclear family cluster, subdividing the working class into thinner and thinner economic tranches, and fencing people into gilded cages complete with 30 year golden handcuff mortgage notes.
You can debate over the exact degree to which civic planners intended to separate and capture individual specimens of human labor. Or how deliberately the 1950s architectural model of personalized kitchens, TVs, and car ports manufactured an increasingly pliable working class subject. But the subdivision doesn’t end at the color line. We are a fully balkanized society.
We don’t have to debate to what extent civic planners intended to divide people by color. In his book, The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein just straight-up quoted them. They weren’t shy, and they wrote it down in memos, meeting minutes, and even speeches.
That’s why I say that the suburbs are a product of racism… because the people who created them intended them that way, and said so.
For the economic analysis from the class perspective, look at why suburbs became entrenched, which has a lot to do with the auto industry.
Yeah, my wife and I moved in with my parents ~ 8 years ago while I was between jobs, and because we all get along it has been such a lovely experience (especially during the pandemic!) that we have never felt a need to move back out. A couple of years ago my uncle moved in because his house was unlivable, and being able to spend time with him has been nice too.
On the other hand, I did also like living by myself, and later just with my wife, for a while, so that I could have my own personal space and privacy. I think I would have felt resentful if I were forced into a particular living situation rather than being able to choose it.
I mean, we’re all forced into a living situation that our budgets and our work-life demands. The illusion of choice is going to a real estate agent and seeing twenty different near-identical overpriced units, then making a dubiously informed decision that’ll lock you into 30 years of debt.
I’d love to live in a crystal palace on a tropical island next to a rail station that’s thirty minutes east of midtown Manhattan and an hour west of the Vail chairlifts which runs me $99.50/mo for the note. No amount of resentfulness will give it to me.
ADUs and duplex/triplex/fourplex housing would go so.hard
We’re already seeing them pop up wherever real estate prices go vertical.
But dense housing builders are constantly at war with suburban city planners. Getting permits is an increasingly Kafka-esque endeavor, unless you can buy yourself an exemption through municipal corruption.