a more careful american dream or a new american dream?

Two (very different) academics/architects have recently offered two (very different) commentaries on how the American understanding of home ownership might be altered (at least partially, I think, in response to the realization that the current realization of the ideal state of home ownership has proved somewhat problematic, as underlined by the current financial crisis, which (at least in my limited understanding) is driven by problems in the mortgage market).

First up is Witold Rybcyznski, who argues that the problem is not with the notion that home ownership is the ideal state of affairs for most American families, but with the implementation of that notion -- housing must be made more affordable. Rybcyznski notes that the term 'affordable housing' has only recently been understood to denote government-subsidized housing and traces the term back to Levittown:

"A pioneer of affordability was the builder Levitt and Sons, whose famous "Levittowns" were the first postwar examples of large, ­master-­planned communities. The story is ­well ­known. After World War II, as GIs came home and the peacetime economy gathered steam, the demand for housing grew dramatically. Levitt, an established Long Island builder, set its sights on this new market. William Levitt, the eldest son, applied his wartime experience building barracks with the Navy Seabees to traditional ­wood-­frame construction. He organized the building site like an assembly line. Teams of workers performed repetitive tasks, one team laying floor slabs, another erecting framing, another applying siding, and so on. No one had ever built housing that way ­before."

Witold then notes that the Levittown houses were considerably more affordable than contemporary homes:

"In 1951, the price of the original Levittowner ($9,900) was three times the national average annual wage ($3,300). In 2008, with an estimated national average wage of $40,500, a similarly affordable house should have a sticker price of $121,500. Yet according to the Census Bureau, even in the current declining market the median price for a new ­single-­family house in the first quarter of 2008 approached twice that: $234,100. So, the price of a modern Levittowner would have to be nearly 50 percent cheaper than that of today's average new house. Easy, you say, just make the house 50 percent smaller, about 1,200 instead of 2,469 square feet. But it's not that simple. In most metropolitan areas, the selling price of such a house would still be more than $200,000, considerably more than $121,500."

And finishes by explaining why that might be so:

"It is a vicious circle. Smaller houses on smaller lots are the logical solution to the problem of affordability, yet ­density--­and less affluent ­neighbors--­are precisely what most communities fear most. In the name of fighting sprawl, local zoning boards enact regulations that either require larger lots or restrict development, or both. These strategies decrease the ­supply--­hence, increase the ­cost--­of developable land. Since builders pass the cost of lots on to buyers, they justify the higher land prices by building larger and more expensive houses--McMansions. This produces more community resistance, and calls for yet more restrictive regulations. In the process, housing affordability becomes an even more distant ­chimera."

Lebbeus Woods, on the other hand, offers a more fundamental critique of the housing market, which might be paraphrased as arguing that the notion of homeownership has been replaced by houseownership, if a home is seen as a more expansive and permanent good and a house as a commodity to be traded frequently for the accumulation of wealth:

"The idea of owning your home has the sound of securing it, of making it a safe haven for you and your family. It is yours and, as long as you make the payments, and pay your taxes, and stay out of too much debt, will remain yours, and your children's (if you have any) in perpetuity. Also, no one can violate your home, or the land it sits on (if it has any), by entering without your permission--a sanctity the law says you can enforce with a gun, if necessary. Another part of this American vision is that home owners are the most responsible citizens of their communities, for the practical reason that they have the most invested in them, not just in terms of money, but also of moral capital--they play by the rules of their communities, which is the basis for their being granted, and sustaining, ownership of a part of them. Or, that's the way it used to be.

Increasingly, Americans buy their homes and condominiums as a financial investment. Far from seeing their homes as places to be handed down to their children, or, for that matter, to live out their lives in, they are viewed as instruments for getting a return on their money, primarily through selling them at a higher price than they paid. Whether they are living in Denver suburbs or Lower Manhattan, homeowners have an eye on the real estate market. If they can sell at a high price, they can afford to move upward, to a better and more expensive home. Leaving aside the issue of those who cannot keep up in this game (and there are many), and lose their homes (becoming effectively 'homeless'), or who have to move because their jobs are lost, or they get transferred and have to sell at any price, it is clear that the character of the American Dream of home ownership has changed radically."

This argument is the sort of broad critique that is difficult to disprove because of its generality (though someone might be able to effectively quibble with the history of home that Woods presents), but I think it is, like most of Woods' writing, at the very least useful for prompting the reconsideration of assumptions.

Posted by eatingbark at October 7, 2008 9:10 AM