Breaking the Building Blockade

One of the books deemed particularly significant that week was BREAKING THE BUILDING BLOCKADE by Robert Lasch, which addressed the dire housing situation. In his book, Lasch identified the hurdles to be overcome to meet the crisis and proposed some solutions. At the time Lasch was an editorial writer at the Chicago Sun. The book is still in print.

In his review of the book, economist Arthur D. Gayer called housing the number one domestic problem of the day, pointing to a 1940 survey that revealed that 40 percent of the housing in US cities and towns was in need of major repair or in some way substandard. Many homes lacked even basic amenities like indoor plumbing. The situation was exacerbated by the under-building during the Depression and the War. With a flood of returning veterans starting families or picking up their pre-war lives, the country faced its greatest housing shortage ever.

Lasch estimated in his book that the country would have to build 15,000,000 homes over the next ten years to meet the need for basic, decent housing. One of the major problems with letting the market solve the problem was that builders usually entered the housing market only when there was a demand for relatively expensive housing and left it once the upper end of the market was saturated. In classic market theory, demand is supposed to generate supply. However inequitable distribution of income meant there were far greater profit margins and less risk in building commercial real estate or luxury housing for people willing to splurge for amenities than there was in building affordable housing that met basic standards for people with little money to spend. As a result, despite enormous market demand for inexpensive housing, it did not get built without government subsidies. People whose income put them in the bottom 40 percent often had no alternative but cramming into rundown or sub-standard housing.

Lasch did not blame the problem on the builders alone. In his book, he detailed how material suppliers, unions, banks and municipal zoning codes also were responsible for policies and practices that inflated housing costs and preserved the status quo. He proposed a program under which local, state and federal governments provided subsidies and incentives to private enterprise to make affordable housing a more attractive and profitable endeavor. Gayer wrote that the book was “for everyone concerned about the broader lines of America's post-war contours.”