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The American Housing Question

Racism, Urban Citizenship, and the Privilege of Mobility

Randolph Hohle

The American Housing Question reframes the question of affordable housing through the concepts of urban citizenship and racism. Randolph Hohle argues that when we consider who benefits from affordable housing, we end up with a complex story of inclusion and exclusion and of privilege and mobility centered around race and social class. Historically, affordable housing’s underlying logic was to create the conditions for white people to exercise the privilege of mobility. Affordable housing policy was first and foremost about granting white people the ability to live in racially-segregated neighborhoods within and across urban areas. When the beneficiaries of affordable housing policy were predominately white, the state proceeded with a comprehensive and multifaceted plan to supply housing, including public housing, subsidizing the construction of market rate housing, rental vouchers, and rent control. The white response to the Civil Rights era – the precursor to neoliberal urban policy – privatized public housing, switched the responsibility to provide affordable housing to the market, and created the conditions for the financialization of housing in the twenty-first century that have made housing unaffordable for everyone. As the author aptly demonstrates, solving America’s housing question means addressing both racism and revaluing the notion of the public.

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Lexington Books
Pages: 174 • Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-1-7936-3648-5 • Hardback • October 2021 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
978-1-7936-3650-8 • Paperback • April 2023 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
Subjects: Social Science / Discrimination & Race Relations, Social Science / Human Geography, Social Science / American Studies

Randolph Hohle is associate professor of sociology at SUNY-Fredonia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 2: Urban Citizenship, The Privilege of Mobility, and the Affordable Housing Debates

Chapter 3: Making Housing Affordable

Chapter 4: The Undoing: Affordable Housing in the Neoliberal Era

Chapter 5: America’s Housing Question in the 21st Century

Conclusion

References

About the Author

Randy Hohle explains, in clear and engaging language, why housing in the US is becoming ever more unaffordable. He presents the long history of housing exclusion that targeted Black people and the more recent effects of financialization and speculation that have severed the protections white people won through racist laws and practices and with government subsidies. If you want to understand how we reached this point and what can be done to make affordable housing accessible to all, you should read this book.


— Richard Lachmann, SUNY Albany


Sociologist Randy Hohle offers a critical take on our longstanding “affordable housing” crisis as always about systemic racism. Historically, white framing coded private-housing-white and public-housing-black, making the latter unacceptable and ensuring whites’ right to segregation from African Americans. After 1960s desegregation, whites still accented public-as-black but sought to privatize some public housing while maintaining their "right" to racially segregate. Hohle concludes with savvy solutions for the housing crisis requiring an end to racist white-privatization logic.


— Joe Feagin, Texas A&M University


The American Housing Question

Racism, Urban Citizenship, and the Privilege of Mobility

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
Summary
Summary
  • The American Housing Question reframes the question of affordable housing through the concepts of urban citizenship and racism. Randolph Hohle argues that when we consider who benefits from affordable housing, we end up with a complex story of inclusion and exclusion and of privilege and mobility centered around race and social class. Historically, affordable housing’s underlying logic was to create the conditions for white people to exercise the privilege of mobility. Affordable housing policy was first and foremost about granting white people the ability to live in racially-segregated neighborhoods within and across urban areas. When the beneficiaries of affordable housing policy were predominately white, the state proceeded with a comprehensive and multifaceted plan to supply housing, including public housing, subsidizing the construction of market rate housing, rental vouchers, and rent control. The white response to the Civil Rights era – the precursor to neoliberal urban policy – privatized public housing, switched the responsibility to provide affordable housing to the market, and created the conditions for the financialization of housing in the twenty-first century that have made housing unaffordable for everyone. As the author aptly demonstrates, solving America’s housing question means addressing both racism and revaluing the notion of the public.

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 174 • Trim: 6½ x 9½
    978-1-7936-3648-5 • Hardback • October 2021 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
    978-1-7936-3650-8 • Paperback • April 2023 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
    Subjects: Social Science / Discrimination & Race Relations, Social Science / Human Geography, Social Science / American Studies
Author
Author
  • Randolph Hohle is associate professor of sociology at SUNY-Fredonia.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents

    Acknowledgments

    Introduction

    Chapter 2: Urban Citizenship, The Privilege of Mobility, and the Affordable Housing Debates

    Chapter 3: Making Housing Affordable

    Chapter 4: The Undoing: Affordable Housing in the Neoliberal Era

    Chapter 5: America’s Housing Question in the 21st Century

    Conclusion

    References

    About the Author

Reviews
Reviews
  • Randy Hohle explains, in clear and engaging language, why housing in the US is becoming ever more unaffordable. He presents the long history of housing exclusion that targeted Black people and the more recent effects of financialization and speculation that have severed the protections white people won through racist laws and practices and with government subsidies. If you want to understand how we reached this point and what can be done to make affordable housing accessible to all, you should read this book.


    — Richard Lachmann, SUNY Albany


    Sociologist Randy Hohle offers a critical take on our longstanding “affordable housing” crisis as always about systemic racism. Historically, white framing coded private-housing-white and public-housing-black, making the latter unacceptable and ensuring whites’ right to segregation from African Americans. After 1960s desegregation, whites still accented public-as-black but sought to privatize some public housing while maintaining their "right" to racially segregate. Hohle concludes with savvy solutions for the housing crisis requiring an end to racist white-privatization logic.


    — Joe Feagin, Texas A&M University


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