{"id":552,"date":"2017-12-08T16:55:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T21:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/?p=552"},"modified":"2017-12-08T16:49:14","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T21:49:14","slug":"growth-of-the-suburbs-consciously-created","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/cities-and-society\/growth-of-the-suburbs-consciously-created\/","title":{"rendered":"Growth of the Suburbs – consciously created"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reading Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream: How Washington Changed the American Market\u201d provided a historical account to how federal policies like the \u00a0Federal Highway System and the Home Owner\u2019s 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 \u00a0(hint, white homeowners). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My expert question asked the class to compare these two quotes:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPersonal 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\u201d \u201d (Park 1915: 579). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d (Gans, 206)<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201ccommunity\u201d \u00a0as well as economic incentives led to the large move to the suburbs. The middle-class family had a \u201cpersonal taste\u201d 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 \u00a0\u201cnatural growth\u201d as well. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For today, we also read the piece by Gans who attempted to dig into some of the \u201cmyths of the homogeneity of the suburbs\u201d in order to ask whether suburbs are really as homogeneous as they may appear, and the role of quasi-primary ties in the community. <\/span><\/p>\n

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. \u00a0In the suburbs, Gans argues that these quasi-primary ties ( like the relationship one makes out of shared interests — kids PTA meeting) are the \u2018glue that holds the community together. These are the everyday interactions that make you think you \u201cknow\u201d people while maintaining privacy. People are able to be social, yet \u201cstay out of each other’s business\u201d. 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? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reading Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream: How Washington Changed the American Market\u201d provided a historical account to how federal policies like the \u00a0Federal Highway System and the Home Owner\u2019s loan Corporation (HOLC) role in developing the suburban housing market — a market which favored and was more accessible to a certain demographic of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}