Mon 26 May 2008
(Re)Discovering the Suburban House Trap
Posted by Susan under feminism and policy
A few days ago economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman voiced concern for the transport needs of suburbanites. Trapped between high gas prices and no alternatives to private autos it will take a generation to undo the mess.
Why? Because homes are people’s largest asset. Take away a family’s home equity and the majority of American’s have zero (or even negative) net worth.
45 years ago American feminist Betty Friedan saw how suburban isolation undermined women’s health and restricted women’s choices. In a now classic essay, “The Problem That Has No Name” Friedan successfully linked the repressive domesticity of the 1950s to suburbanization.
Friedan’s analysis was pooh-poohed as a “women’s” issue.
Coming soon to a station near you: $5.00/gallon gas. VOILLA!
Sprawling suburbs are a national (and therefore not gendered) problem.
Feminist ways of thinking reveal new sides of way more issues than equal pay, child care, and reproductive choice. 10 minutes ago would you have realized how critically women’s lives are affected by the supply of mass transit?
Until we expand, upgrade and diversify the nation’s transportation network women will be stuck in isolated homes, far from shops, schools, and workplaces.
Soaring gas prices reveal the gendered perversity of our dependence on private autos.
Connect the dots … subsidizing mass transit and reinvesting in our urban centers has a strong upside for women.
3 Responses to “ (Re)Discovering the Suburban House Trap ”
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June 7th, 2008 at 7:03 am[...] Read the rest of the post here. [...]
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:22 am
What a great connection between a feminist classic and contemporary political economy. It’s so nice to have another scholar sharing these great thoughts online! Thanks.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:42 am
The link between the feminist situation and isolated sprawl housing is an interesting and novel one, and one that I’ve seen played out in real life but never put in that context. Bravo! I can’t however join you and Krugman on the recent enthusiasm for abandoning the norm of home ownership in this country. By way of disclosure, I’m writing on the west side of Los Angeles, which more and more looks like a nasty knockoff version of third-world-style urban development, with 20,000+ square foot homes that only mega-millionaires can afford, and 700,000+ people estimated to be living illegally in garages. More mass transit would be good. Personally-owned automobiles that run on something other than gasoline even better. But there’s only so much space in urban cores, less is sometimes just less after all (particularly when square footage is what is being counted), and what you tend to see in those tight urban areas looks to me like ever-increasing income inequality.