Homeownership As The American Dream Essay

The ending of World War Two ignited a fresh start for the United States, the post war era ushered in changes in American culture, education, and economy. Although the post war era is known as a successful period in American history, the return of soldiers and soaring birth rates brought an intensive demand for affordable housing. In the year of 1945, the federal government implemented several reforms that would change the idea of what it meant to be a homeownership and the idea of what it meant to be an American. “Homeownership as the American dream shifted into an idea that it was the right to be a homeowner.” Housing programs such as the serviceman readjustment act of 1944 (G.I. Bill) and increase funding for the federal housing administration (FHA) ensured veterans, along with blue and white …show more content…
During this time period veterans and civilians began searching for homes outside the cities and into the newly built suburbs. During the late 1940’s and through the early1960’s, America went through a massive migration to the suburbs. While historians agree that post war suburbia was the birth of our modern middle class socio status and the redefining of the American dreams many argue whether or not the post war suburbs of the 1950’s and 1960’s good or bad for America. In this paper I will discuss the rise of the American dream as homeownership during post war America; by focusing on the rise of the middle class and core middle class social values portrayed in the media and specifically looking at Levittown communities (New York and Pennsylvania) as well exploring how the idea of this middle class utopia became problematic by examining how developers and government used tools of exclusion to exclude minorities from experiencing the “American Dream” from the prospective of the white majority view points and minority view