ARCHITECTURE

According to the CEA’s narrative, this rising tide
of shared growth continued until 1973. But the shape of
inequality during this period begs closer scrutiny, as postwar
growth put increasing pressure on the idea of the middle
class as an attainable aspiration for all. The report’s
authors acknowledge that they exclude “non-economic
dimensions” in favor of a focus on productivity, income
inequality, and participation, and that those crafting domestic
policy should take this into account. 24 Nevertheless,
the discursive segregation persists. Record low levels
of income inequality during the 1950s did not exist in economic
isolation. Instead they must be thought of together
with inequalities based on gender, race, and sexuality—
the separate-but-equal cul-de-sacs, highways, and lunch
counters that made “shared growth” with one’s middle-class
neighbors imaginable at all [See HH: 1949, 2012].
In marked contrast to the generally positive
picture painted by the CEA, discrimination and segregation
in the housing market not only persisted, but were
produced and maintained by governmental programs.
Redlining in loan distribution meant that mixed-race or
all-black neighborhoods were considered high-risk in
governmentally insured mortgage programs, which effectively
meant that no loans were available in those areas.
25 On a private level, restrictive covenants in housing
developments placed limits on who could live where and
how they could do so on individual parcels. 26 Accordingly,
the post-war expansion of access to housing wealth largely
excluded black households, with strong repercussions
for the intergenerational transmission of wealth inequality.
27 In 1950, 57 percent of white households owned their
homes compared to 35 percent of non-white households.
By 1970, these numbers were 65 percent and 42 percent,
respectively. 28 Among all housing units financed by Veterans’
Affairs and FHA loans between 1946 and 1959, less
than 2 percent were bought by black households. 29
In public housing, which was shrinking in availability
during this period, access to shared growth was not
only more limited, it was increasingly segregated as well. 30
In Los Angeles, the composition of public housing tenants
shifted from 55 percent white and 30 percent black
in 1947, to 14 percent white and 65 percent black (with 19
percent of Mexican origin) by 1959. 31 In Chicago, 60 percent
of Chicago Housing Authority tenants were black
in 1948, compared to 95 percent in 1984 [See HH: 1954,
1962]. These post-war spatial arrangements were also divisive
along gender lines. Inner-city public housing populations
in large cities like Chicago were quickly shifting
from mainly two-parent families to households headed
by females and receiving public assistance. 32 Meanwhile,
suburban environments were criticized for isolating women
physically and socially by distancing them from jobs,
childcare services, and opportunities for social interaction
and support, while tying them to traditional norms of domesticity.
33 These segregations simultaneously reinforced
comparable discrimination against people of any gender
with non-normative sexual orientations. Though the narrative
of shared growth and decreasing income inequality
in the postwar U.S. economy is accurate in many ways,
the contours of the middle class among whom this growth
was distributed were in flux, and embedded inequalities
of all kinds were far from mitigated by over-determined
notions of economic growth.
1.2.3.2 “The Age of Expanded Participation (1973–1995)”
As a result of cultural shifts responding to some
of these very inequalities, the CEA points toward “expanded
participation” as the dominant economic paradigm for
the period from 1973 to 1995. 34 With the legal incorporation
of women, racial minorities, and other historically
marginalized groups into the market economy, globalization
was coming into focus as a phenomenon pertaining to
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