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?
I think the loose ties that you describe do offer a kind of social fabric for a community. There’s a comfort in knowing that you have shared interests with those in a community, but also a comfort in knowing you can retain your privacy and enjoy the social connection at your choosing. I think this relates to conditionality within communities in general because there is often an expectation that these loose ties remain loose, and it can often be seen as unbecoming to probe too far into another’s business. This is especially true in the suburbs where Gans argues that these sort of ties are the “glue” for the community.
The truth is that any modern settlement or modern community has elements of what are considered suburban values and city values. While the degree to which social ties are kept varies from location to location, elements of both can be found. In the suburbs that Gans describes is similar to community forged in places like Bowdoin or small colleges. There can be an increased sense of community when there is a universal understanding that all the actors have similar goals and missions in life. Smaller communities also depend on this shared sense of “culture” that help regulate and moderate individual behavior. Smaller physical space also plays a role. Cities for the most part are large, impersonal settlements in which interpersonal services , vital to the upkeep of community in the suburbs, are commodified and thus depersonalized. However even in the city there are elements of community dependence. Residents in a particular neighborhood or on the same block practice elements of community and community building in individual distinct ways.