Cleaning up house

France suffered a severe housing and job shortage immediately following World War II. To combat this problem, the government came up with an appealing and surprisingly simple answer. In fact, they are recycling this 60-year-old solution in order to ease the current economic slump.

The French government adopted a Keynesian policy of intervention: they spent thousands of francs employing citizens to restore and maintain all of the old and beautiful buildings that line the famed Parisian boulevards.

Obama’s stimulus plan needs such a French twist. His proposal already addresses the need for infrastructure development, which includes bridge and road maintenance, but it should to be expanded to include real estate. Here is why:

The French method accomplished three important things: it established a labor niche which helped drag the county out of its depression, it preserved thousands of gorgeous structures that continue to draw people from all over the world – people who pay thousands of dollars for the privilege to see them – and it curtailed the post-war onslaught of commercial businesses from buying up and tearing down the country’s best buildings. (My brief analysis broadly skims over a much larger, more complicated problem that had plagued France. For a more in-depth understanding, check out “Housing Policy and Population Problems in France” by Cicely Watson, published in Population Studies).

Today, according to a New York Times article titled “France, Unlike U.S., Is Deep Into Work on Stimulus Project,” the French government is spending 100 million euros employing people to fix up cultural centers, touch up hundreds of chateaus, weed gardens, and secure railroads.

According to the article, France is deploying funds quickly and efficiently, knocking the theory of free-market proponents who believe big centralized governments are inefficient and static. Although France has to borrow millions of euros in order to fund the procedure, consider it a kind of cash-back plan, as preservation and revitalization are moneymaking sectors. For instance, they tend to cut costs as newer and more effective energy-conserving tools and appliances replace those that are wasteful. More importantly, it trains thousands of people in the many different fields of construction, an ever-present field.

Translate this into an American context: beautiful but depressed towns along the Hudson River, towns such as Troy or Fleischmanns, are haunted by structures of boom times past. And as foreclosures, abandoned residences, and unpredictable costs make gloomy the real estate market, a large-scale revitalization program makes sense.

It may ease unemployment. It will also make habitable homes for families in need, not to mention help with the plethora of impromptu ramshackle villages of recently homeless peoples that have sprung up all over the nation as a result of the economic downturn (there was a Times article about a particularly large one in Providence, Rhode Island that’s worth checking out). Subsequently, it would improve the attractiveness of towns and cities that could benefit from increased tourism.

If we accept the American ethic that home-ownership strengthens a nation, than the government, like France’s government, should help us protect them.