The reading Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream: How Washington Changed the American Market” provided a historical account to how federal policies like the  Federal Highway System and the Home Owner’s loan Corporation (HOLC) role in developing the suburban housing market — a market which favored and was more accessible to a certain demographic of the population  (hint, white homeowners).  

My expert question asked the class to compare these two quotes:

“Personal tastes and convenience, vocational and economic interests, infallibly tend to segregate and thus to classify the populations of great cities. In this way, the city acquires an organization which is neither designed nor controlled” ” (Park 1915: 579).

“The middle-class suburban family with the new house and a long-term fixed rate, FHA insured mortgage became a symbol, and perhaps a stereotype, of the American way of life.” (Gans, 206)

I asked this question because for me I saw a low of similarities between Ernest Burgess concentric circle model (invasion, competition, succession) and the ways in which consumer personal preference can drive urban change — in this instance a preference for decentralized residences and desire for a different “community”  as well as economic incentives led to the large move to the suburbs. The middle-class family had a “personal taste” that the urban policy fulfilled. I wondered if then this move and homogeneous makeup of the suburbs was purely constructed through urban policy or represented to a degree  “natural growth” as well.  

For today, we also read the piece by Gans who attempted to dig into some of the “myths of the homogeneity of the suburbs” in order to ask whether suburbs are really as homogeneous as they may appear, and the role of quasi-primary ties in the community.

Quasi-primary ties are often thought and written about in quite a negative connotation, due to the fact that these ties while more intimate that secondary ties, are more guarded than primary ties.  In the suburbs, Gans argues that these quasi-primary ties ( like the relationship one makes out of shared interests — kids PTA meeting) are the ‘glue that holds the community together. These are the everyday interactions that make you think you “know” people while maintaining privacy. People are able to be social, yet “stay out of each other’s business”. As I discussed in class, to me this felt familiar to last weeks readings about the role anonymity plays in the urban setting between residence in apartment buildings. On September 4th we discussed how George Simmel found cities to be anonymous settlements where relationships often serve vital functions, and are highly individualistic in nature. People build relationships that benefit them. Therefore, could it be fair to say there is a level of conditionality to all relationships within communities or relationships in general?

Jennifer Sherman’s work in Golden Valley was focused on studying the effect of poverty, industrial restructuring, and rapid job loss on a mostly white rural community.  This was in order to observe the ways in which declining life changes can lead to the evolution of specific cultural and moral discourses that help people adjust to their changing circumstances and compensate for their inabilities to achieve success through more traditional avenues ( 30). Sherman’s work was especially interesting due to the fact that white poverty, especially in the urban sense is seldom discussed and studied, and is interesting to compare white rural poverty to the theories of hypersegregation and the creation of the iconic ghetto in cities we have discussed in class, which focussed on predominately black and minority ethnic groups. What Sherman found is that community setting can affect behavior of the poor in a number of ways, for instance, Sherman argues that a rural setting allows for a greater range of survival tools and strategies that are acceptable within separate sub-cultural spheres (65).  And that the evidence from Golden Valley suggests that rural areas may operate according to very different social rules than urban areas, and in order to alleviate poverty we must first understand the different “social milieus” in which poverty is prevalent and the ways in which setting interacts with culture and behavior (99) .

Sherman’s work was interesting to discuss in class following the past two lectures which had focused on the creation of the hypersegregation theories presented  that sought to explain the formation of the urban (predominantly black) ghetto. Particularly, how similarities arise between the forces, particularly institutional, and ways in which industrialization have constructed what appears to be parallels to ‘the inherited ghetto’ theory. My question hopes to draw out these similarities and differences around the structural forces that led to poverty becoming concentrated within the urban and rural context, as well as the tools/ resources each group had to combat such obstacles.

What I was left thinking about after the discussion where a few things. First, thinking about the structural challenges that differ between an urban and rural setting, and how this can affect the tools and resources available to the citizens (if one does not consider race).  In Golden Valley the use of federal aid was not a taboo. Meanwhile in the urban setting, aide is regularly used. Does this have to do with the structural anonymity that is associated with city life verse a small rural town where there are few stores? Or is it a difference in cultural values? Or perhaps a difference in the who they blame for poverty and whether they feel deserving of “help”. Second, the type of survival strategies that develop in order to combat poverty. In Golden Valley, white citizens appear to develop an “us v them” mentality, and social capital becomes in ways more valuable than economic. How people view you (race, whether you receive aid, civic participation) matters a great deal more to one’s membership into society than the size of their waller. Lastly, the centrality of place. I saw a lot of parallels to the idea of “inheriting” where one was from. We talked about how many of us could see growing up our own desire to “get out” of the small town, city, suburb, etc we were from. There is an inherent desire for the “different” when we have the capital to choose for ourselves, however there is a pattern that people return to where they are from, or at least a similar place. Which could explain why those seem to remain in “ghetto” or “poverty” classified places. There appears to be an identity and value mapped onto these places that hold a special value.

Finally, the class discussion raised an interesting connection to the most recent Presidential election. In the  last election, Trump was able to mobilize a significant population of populist and postmaterialist votes. People who were skeptical of outsiders, which sounds familiar to the concerns of the people of Golden Valley. Similar to the ways in which white poverty is “forgotten”, this  voting block in the election felt their needs and values had been unheard by past elites. People were angry and wanted to be payed attention to. We weren’t able to discuss this much further, but it is an interesting idea and parallel.