37. 1950s Redux

The surge in outdoor recreation and people from cities and suburbs looking for a rural home is not just happening in Wallowa County. Oregon parks, trails, and beaches are busy across the state. In our county, people are taking up primary residence in second homes, and real estate sales and construction is booming. 

Megan McArdle writes in the Washington Post, September 5, that we are not alone, and then she warns of a disastrous side effect:

“The housing market tells a story of two Americas. One has the educated and professional classes, most of whom can work from home. They’re breaking leases to move to the suburbs or the country; trading up to bigger places; taking advantage of low interest rates to refinance; building additions for the new home office.

“The other America has the people whose job requires their physical presence. Many are out of work and worried about how to pay their rent or mortgage; those who still have jobs are stuck in place and worried about getting covid-19.”

There are echoes of the post WW 2 housing boom and growth of suburbs. WW 2 vets and the GI bill, which provided government aid for schooling and housing, fueled that boom. It was abetted by the mechanization of agriculture—fewer people needed on the farms—and by the fact that millions of American men had seen Paris and San Diego, and weren’t interested in going back to the farm. Women too—over 300,000 served in the Armed Forces and an estimated six million went to work during the war in factories and other jobs previously held by men.  They too, were ready for something different—and often crushed at having to leave jobs they’d done well and would have liked to have continued.

Come the suburb. Levittown, Pennsylvania, a brand new and completely planned community, was the iconic suburb, but it was followed by usually tract developments—houses in one or a few plans, turned left and right—across the country.

The Federal Government chipped in with new water and sewer money, while it failed to provide funds for rebuilding aging infrastructure in the cities, and lo, the urban ghetto. 

I don’t know which way post-Covid housing and migration will go, but there is an eerie echo here of economic and racial divides—already in place—about to explode. 

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