Story of the Suburbs
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The Story of the Suburbs: How the State Destroyed Our Cities and Segregated Society By Brian Foglia
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Abstract: This paper seeks to explain the creation and dominance of suburbia in the United States from a historical and socio-economic perspective. The phenomenon is shown to be caused by significant state intervention in various markets such as housing, banking, and automobiles. The data and research presented confirm the validity of Austrian theories of state intervention and market distortion. First, we will discuss the historical emergence of suburbia before the intervention. Second, we will describe the particular state policies that introduced perverse incentives into the aforementioned markets. We will then discuss the impacts of these policies on cities and the systematic victimization of their inhabitants. Finally, we will discuss the overall social and economic repercussions of this suburban subsidization.
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It has become conventional wisdom throughout academia that the emergence of suburbia during the 20th century has created – or perpetuated - a great deal of social strife in the United States. The rise of the suburban dominion has, on no small scale, contributed to the stark racial segregation that has persisted throughout the postwar era. The taxes required for such an endeavor have drained untold resources from the urban population to finance suburbia’s largess. The socio-economic organization of the suburban landscape stifles the sense of community and cuts Americans off from one another, leading to a litany of social and psychological pandemics. Below, I will show that the natural process of suburbanization that began to take place in the prewar United States was appropriated by the federal government and used as a means of enriching entrenched interests and propagating racist policies. The state has, over the course of roughly a century, enacted legislation and enforced policies that have subsidized and artificially invigorated
The Story of the Suburbs: How the State Destroyed Our Cities and Segregated Society By Brian Foglia
2
Abstract: This paper seeks to explain the creation and dominance of suburbia in the United States from a historical and socio-economic perspective. The phenomenon is shown to be caused by significant state intervention in various markets such as housing, banking, and automobiles. The data and research presented confirm the validity of Austrian theories of state intervention and market distortion. First, we will discuss the historical emergence of suburbia before the intervention. Second, we will describe the particular state policies that introduced perverse incentives into the aforementioned markets. We will then discuss the impacts of these policies on cities and the systematic victimization of their inhabitants. Finally, we will discuss the overall social and economic repercussions of this suburban subsidization.
3
It has become conventional wisdom throughout academia that the emergence of suburbia during the 20th century has created – or perpetuated - a great deal of social strife in the United States. The rise of the suburban dominion has, on no small scale, contributed to the stark racial segregation that has persisted throughout the postwar era. The taxes required for such an endeavor have drained untold resources from the urban population to finance suburbia’s largess. The socio-economic organization of the suburban landscape stifles the sense of community and cuts Americans off from one another, leading to a litany of social and psychological pandemics. Below, I will show that the natural process of suburbanization that began to take place in the prewar United States was appropriated by the federal government and used as a means of enriching entrenched interests and propagating racist policies. The state has, over the course of roughly a century, enacted legislation and enforced policies that have subsidized and artificially invigorated
References: Aguanomics. http://aguanomics.com Alexander, Barbara. The U.S. Homebuilding Industry: A Half-Century of Building the American Dream, (UBS Warburg, 2000). Baxandall, Rosalyn, and Elizabeth Ewen. Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Carson, Kevin. "The Distorting Effects of Transportation Subsidies." The Freeman, November 2010. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-distorting-effects-of-transportationsubsidies/ Duany, Andres, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck. Suburban Nation. New York: North Point Press, 2000. Gottdiener, Mark, and Ray Hutchison. The New Urban Sociology. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2006. Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Krieger, Alex. "The Costs - and Benefits? - of Sprawl." In Sprawl and Suburbia, edited by William S. Saunders. A Harvard Design Magazine Reader 2. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Lewyn, Michael. "Why Sprawl Is a Conservative http://www.walkablestreets.com/conservative.htm Issue." Walkablestreets.com. Renaud, Bertrand. "The Housing System of the Former Soviet Union: Why Do the Soviets Need Housing Markets?" Housing Policy Debate 3, no. 3: 877-889. Rose, Mark H. Interstate: Express Highway Politics, 1939-1989. rev. ed. N.p.: The University of Tennessee Press, 1990. Rothbard, Murray N. America 's Great Depression. 5th ed. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000. Ruff, Joshua. "Levittown: The Archetype for Suburban Development." Historynet.com.http://www.historynet.com/levittown-the-archetype-for-suburbandevelopment.htm/1. 26