History Lesson

The year 1949 was a big one in world history. Mao's army overtook China, Apartheid became official policy in South Africa, Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion read Israel's declaration of Independence, and President Harry Truman lead America into the NATO pact.

But it was one small Congressional act that literally and figuratively shaped the urban American landscape: the Housing Act of 1949. The Housing Act came out of Truman's second term in office when he unveiled his Fair Deal Program. It was a more diluted, less radical, and significantly less effective version of Roosevelt's New Deal Program of the late 30s and 40s. Although the program consisted of various proposals, only the Housing Act of 1949 passed in Congress, after four years of lobbying.

It's adoption could be evidenced as proof of an ideological shift in post-war American thinking. Increasingly, it was commonly agreed that every man -- or white man, at least -- deserved a decent home and suitable living situation. Furthermore, because America faced a severe post-war housing shortage, Congress began measuring national health by home ownership -- the more, the better. By 1949, for example, 1.5 million veterans were living in sub-standard housing, a statistic so embarrassing that the newly drafted GI Bill included funds earmarked for returning vets to buy homes.

Within the 1949 Housing Act were four titles: Title I was concerned with slum clearance and urban renewal, Title II saw to the the expansion of the Federal Housing Association and the increased distribution of mortgages, Title III called for the creation of new and better public housing, and Title IV expanded the Farmers Housing Association, providing mortgages for lower income farmers. It is specifically because of Title II that the US has one of the highest rates of home ownership in the world.

This was the first major instance in the twentieth century where federal government played a major role in urban planning. It was also one of the best examples of devolution in the Truman administration. States and local neighborhood boards, for the first time, now had access to and were in charge of housing vouchers, housing block grants and low-income housing tax credit. Oddly, Senator Robert Taft, nicknamed Mr. Republican, was chief sponsor of the act. The irony of this is that Taft, co-author of the Taft-Hartley Act, which severely diminished the power of labor unions, did not sympathize with the urban working class.

The 1949 Housing Act was influential but not quite successful. Some of the benefits include an increase in funding for public playgrounds and parks.

But these bonuses pale in comparison to the act's negative impact. By providing more mortgages for whites under Title II, and by developing thousands more homes outside of city centers, the act promoted the rapid growth of suburbia and the migration of families and individuals away from cities (and subsequently begat the rapid expanse of highways and car ownership). Although there is a lot one could criticize about suburbia, from a city stand point, this migration was devastating because it widened the racial divide, as mostly white families were moving to suburbia, and because those same white people were no longer paying city taxes. The tax burden became even heavier for poorer black and Hispanic families. These people were not provided adequate social services or housing to make up the difference, and so thousands of people were forced to find sub-par housing in other ghettos. The dark joke was that instead of "urban renewal," the act was a form of "Negro removal."

Since it's creation, the Federal Housing Association operated by preventing ethnic groups from entering a neighborhood by denying them mortgages. Neighborhoods that had a high concentration of blacks were circled in red markers on FHA maps so that brokers knew were to (or not to) direct white and black clients in search of homes, and so that investors knew where to stay away, a practice that later became known as red lining.

But even for white people beneficiaries of the act, the move toward suburbia was not always an upgrade. Those who went to Levittown in Long Island for example, were stuck with cheap, cookie cutter, mass produced cells blocks.

Arguably, the most devastating result is attributed to Title I, urban renewal, which saw to the creation of various "city projects." To make room for these projects, thousands of housing units were torn down and not enough units were built in stead, exacerbating the housing crisis even further. For instance, the construction of Lincoln Center in Manhattan saw to the displacement of many low-income, largely Hispanic city-dwellers and the destruction of thousands of apartment complexes, otherwise known as the backdrop for the musical "West Side Story."

And urban renewal plans saw to the destruction of the historic and old, so that all notions of preservation were thrown out the window in favor of the new and modern. With inadequate funds, corruption, and mismanagement, New York City was plagued with deteriorating structures, vacancy problems, and weird divides between the super rich and super poor.

In retrospect, the affects of the 1949 Housing Act provided the water shed for the urban rioting of the 1960s when angry black youths were simply unable to digest their gross mistreatment any further. Today, we see its effects still, but in a radically new way. There are no longer empty lots or neglected neighborhoods. Today, everything is overly developed. As most Manhattan neighborhoods are "untouchable" to those who do not make salaries in the many millions, the city is becoming a playground for the white and wealthy and a battle ground for the middle to lower income residents (residents, sometimes, of three or four generations). In other words, the city is becoming just another homogenized, suburbanized, American strip mall.