Property Values: The Rise and Fall of the American Homeowner

A wide-ranging history of American land ownership, from westward expansion to the suburban housing crisisFrom its very beginnings, the United States has defined itself by its relationship to land.Settlers saw the continent as the raw material for building a prosperous life while their leaders viewed it as a means for building a people.In the 1950s, the suburban home became a place for Americans to create a personal utopia of lawns and living rooms, of washing machines and dishwashers.Property Values traces how land and its ownership became inextricably tied to the American ideal of independence-and demonstrates why the Homestead Act and a thirty-year mortgage have far more in common than you think. In this engaging book, Joshua Specht uncovers the history behind the American conviction that widespread land ownership is a fundamental requirement for a flourishing democratic society.We meet the nineteenth-century settler farmers whose dreams of new social and political forms were built o