History of Sprawl (continued)

In the 1940’s the Federal Housing Authority and Veterans Affairs extend low interest loans to Vets (after WWII) and others looking to purchase a house outside of the city. At the same time the federal government passed a bill that made mortgage payments tax deductible. The federal government also offered more subsidies to the urban centers for airports, highways, and tax-free bonds to build schools, water treatment plants, and other utilities. At the same time the federal government also lowered taxes on fuel. All of these factors coupled with an advertising campaign that glorified suburban life created heavy motivation to move out of the city. Now the suburbs were using zoning to keep the city away. The biggest part of this legislation was the prohibition of multi-family dwellings, creating an area where only detached, single-family homes could be constructed, further adding to the patterns of sprawl. The Federal Housing Authority prohibited selling property to non-whites, and loans were refused to those who would upset the racial composition of neighborhoods. These two exclusionary principles helped to make the suburbs a monoculture of single-family homes dominated by the white middle class.

In the 1950’s businesses began to be drawn out to the suburbs by the new highways, low taxes, subsidized utilities, and the well-to-do customers in the suburbs. This sparked the creation of the now ever present malls and strip malls. The strip malls offered highly visible business locations along the major arteries of travel from the city to the suburbs. The malls offered lots of parking, easy access, and a creation of the attitude, “Why do we need to go the city, we can get everything we need right here.” Now the factories, mills, and manufacturing centers begin to move out to the suburbs where taxes are lower, and land is cheaper, not to mention the ease of moving freight along the newly created highways.

Sprawl has adversely affected the cities they so desperately wish to disenfranchise themselves from. With a reduced tax base due to the big move out of the city, loss of large employers, and a deteriorating infrastructure, cities have become afflicted with large increases in unemployment, drug use, crime, social distress, and inadequate housing. This brings us full circle back to our time and place in the world. There are many problems associated with urban sprawl besides the deterioration of our cities, which will be the focus of the next section of the overview.

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