Death of the American dream house

Abstract

The private house in America is the focal point of the myth/dream/reality of the good life for its middle classes as well as the aspirants to those anointed ranks. The automobile has lost much of its glamour: the boat, the trailer, the vacation to Europe are separately and together becoming powerful symbols, but their use-and excursions involving their use-begins with the house. To current blue-collar workers, moreover, the private house is what the 01d postal savings system or employe r automatic wage deductions for the purchase of Liberty Bonds or Savings Bonds or War Bonds were to previous generations-a form of relatively painless savings. For all but the more affluent in our society, a house is not only a home, it is typically a major repository of capital investment and stored equity. As any imaginative architect will testify, houses are purchased to be sold, not to be lived in. Their ultimate sale represents the edge which makes Social Security and Old Age pensions endurable. Possession of a house makes a man a full citizen of the work group. In this last generation, workingmen of America have moved from being renters to owners. The ramifications of this past shift are far from fully explored, but more important to understand now are the present facts and future realities of the housing stock for American workers. Who builds it? For whom? How? Why? And where?