-processes that produce a physical landscape but also political

-set of opportunities and constraints

-what can happen in the contemporary suburban context
-how this suburban boom happens
-levittown: mass production of houses
-1952- liel, dissertation on levittown
-images of a single house in levittown
-suburban: moving to space
-amoritzation: regular total mortgage payment, interest payment decreases as time
passes, principal payment increases as time passes.
-HOLC + FHA + VA + FNMA +GNMA = securitization
-securitization > standardisation
-securitization > ALSO. great recession
-transformation of pool of mortgages into something like a stock that could be sold
on the stock market
-roughly similar mortgages (amount, quality/rating/credit scores of borrower, region),
pulled together, produce income stream, regular payments, constitutive body of
capital. buy a share in mortgages. securitising mortgages, grouping similar
mortgages, selling shares in this group of mortgages. package and resell mortgages,
need to be mortgaging similar things > STANDARDIZATION. increasingly, houses
were standardised so as to support securitisation. securitised mortgages were not
safe investments as people imagined. people believed that house prices would go up
forever. were not worth as much as people imagined they were worth. these
securities fell apart. proved not to be credit worthy. people panicked about value of
the stocks. process of decline and collapse.
-mortgage interest deduction: interest deductible when income tax written into
constitution in 1913,
-federal government forgoes a lot: by not collecting taxes on mortgage interests paid
in any one year- more than what the federal government has spent in housing ever.
-average house size- change in expectations. ideals of home. transforms radically
throughout the century.
-reproducing racialized difference
-lasting damage done by the national government was that it put its seal of approval
on ethnic and racial discrimination and developed policies which had the result of the
practical abandonment of large sections of older, industrial cities.
-levittown: explicitly prohibited people of colour.
-production of segregated suburbs, reproduced sense of racialized differences, and
produced different outcomes for people of different racial categories.
-most of the income/wealth of americans come from the home they own
-the inability to buy into suburban boom in the post ww2 period- proved to be an
obstacle for people of colour/ jewish to gather wealth.
-wealth is a strong predictor for educational/professional attainment, health
-broader effects of segregation in the suburbs and cities, impacts
-1940s/50s: can move out of centre cities- consolidate gains to whiteness.
-accelerated depreciation (commercial space in the suburbs- malls, shopping centres
etc.)- depreciation of fixed assets at a fast rate early in their useful lives. reduces the
amount of taxable income early in the life of an asset, so that tax liabilities are
deferred.
-costs of building the building, operations, maintenance.
-pretend/ shorten length of life of building (PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE),

encourages vast numbers of malls and shopping centres, building buildings that
reflected the depreciation schedule. build more and more low quality buildings
(become obsolete faster to shelter profits). encouraged rapid construction. federal
gov subsidising this process by forgoing huge amounts of taxes.
-deadmalls.com // person who builds and operate the mall profits - renting out space,
profits, less likely to pay taxes. construction industry benefits.
-dendritic highways: cup de sacs. as divisions increase, increase load on the roads
that everyone has to use. spend a lot more time in traffic. urban mobility report.
-rise of environmentalism and mending the suburban cultural schism.
-cross-class cooperation. possibility arises. elite environmentalists, cooperate with
suburban residents. mend this class schism that has been in existence since
suburban boom. elites think that suburbs are lousy places. people who move to
suburbs think that its great opportunity to raise family. recognise traffic problem, and
externalities related to living in suburbs- anti sprawl movement. question remains
whether it emerges.
-externalities, impact fees and EIRs
-anti-sprawl
-NEW URBANISM: integrated uses, shops on ground floor, apartments above,
transportation, walkable/biking cities, grid instead of dendritic. question remains
whether community is produced by the built environment. that the suburbs
undermined.
-RETURN TO THE CITY