At the Boundaries of Homeownership
Credit, Discrimination, and the American State

Citizens who benefit from the submerged state fail to see it; citizens who don't benefit see the state and transform it.

Chloe N. Thurston (Author)

9781108434522, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 May 2018

268 pages, 2 b/w illus. 1 table
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

'Policy historians, scholars of American political development, and students of social change will find much to engage in this important book.' Eric Fure-Slocum, Journal of American History

In the United States, homeownership is synonymous with economic security and middle-class status. It has played this role in American life for almost a century, and as a result, homeownership's centrality to Americans' economic lives has come to seem natural and inevitable. But this state of affairs did not develop spontaneously or inexorably. On the contrary, it was the product of federal government policies, established during the 1930s and developed over the course of the twentieth century. At the Boundaries of Homeownership traces how the government's role in this became submerged from public view and how several groups who were locked out of homeownership came to recognize and reveal the role of the government. Through organizing and activism, these boundary groups transformed laws and private practices governing determinations of credit-worthiness. This book describes the important policy consequences of their achievements and the implications for how we understand American statebuilding.

1. Politics, markets, and boundaries
2. Building a government out-of-sight, 1932–1949
3. 'To create and divert'
4. Breaching the blockades of custom and code
5. Bankers in the bedroom
6. From public housing to homeownership
7. Markets, marginalized groups, and American political development
Appendix: list of archival sources and congressional hearings
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Social research & statistics [JHBC], Sociology [JHB], Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies [JFSL1], Social classes [JFSC], Social mobility [JFFM], Social discrimination & inequality [JFFJ], Society & culture: general [JF], Society & social sciences [J]