What is typical housing like for the upper, lower and middle class households in TTL’s US in 2021?
In 2021, the US housing market as a whole still hasn’t recovered from the Great Housing Crash of 2019. This has resulted in large numbers of homeowners defaulting on mortgage payments, as well as evictions; evictions have been especially prominent in the new exurbs (TTL’s equivalent to OTL suburbs), and many former homeowners have been forced to move into major cities as renters.
-
Housing, and US government policies related to housing, took a different path in comparison to our world, which was also shaped by wider economic conditions. During the first generation after the end of the Second Great War, there was not an equivalent in most of the US to the OTL post-WWII suburbanization, although there were some areas where new exurbs were constructed, such as southern California. Exurbs, during the first generation after the war, were more likely to be constructed around US cities that did not have extensive public transportation, at least in comparison to the major cities in the Northeast and Midatlantic states.
After the end of the SGW, the trend in most major US cities, especially in the Northeast, Midatlantic, and Midwest, was for investment in housing within the major cities themselves, and to improve on already existing housing infrastructure. The ideal that developed in many areas of the US during the first postwar generation was to gain admission, so to speak, to the new, modern high rise apartments going up in the major cities. The tendency in most US cities during the postwar years was to address housing needs by building up, instead of out.
One effect of this trend in housing and high rise construction in US cities in TTL was that Federally-funded highways were not as a rule built
through major cities.
During the postwar period, housing trends in the new Canadian states, the Midsouth, and the Caribbean also tended to copy trends in other regions, such as the emphasis on building new high rises and improving existing housing and transportation infrastructure. However, housing projects in the Midsouth were also affected in the long run by a relative lack of demand for new housing caused by the region’s longstanding demographic and economic problems.
The Humphrey administration (1961-1973) left a lasting mark on the housing landscape in most US cities with its heavy investment in public housing. Urban renewal was an issue of personal interest for President Humphrey, and his administration focused heavily, especially before the Fourth Pacific War, in improving the quality of life for big city residents. Public housing projects built during the Humphrey administration were generally praised, by residents and later historians alike, for reflecting both high levels of Federal investment and for the emphasis placed on trying to ensure a “neighborhood” quality. The popularity of the Humphrey-era public housing projects was such that succeeding administrations that did not place a similar emphasis on these kinds of urban renewal and housing projects, such as the Blackford and Reynolds administrations, did not dramatically reduce Federal support for such projects.
Trends in housing and urban development shifted in most of the US during the late Twentieth Century due to two larger trends: high levels of foreign immigration, and a large wave of internal migration from the Midsouth to other regions of the country. This contributed, beginning in the 1980s, to increased demands for new housing.
One of the new government agencies created during the Reynolds administration was the Bureau of Housing and Home Ownership (BHHO). The BHHO was the first US government agency to encourage private home ownership, and was instrumental in encouraging private investment both into a new generation of urban high rise apartments and into new exurban (suburban) housing outside of the major cities. Although the demand for new housing in the US temporarily declined in the early 1990s due to the Tech Recession, demand had surged again in most of the country by the late 1990s.
The Reynolds administration (1981-1989) was the first administration to publicly emphasize and push for greater private home ownership, though without reducing funding for popular Humphrey-era public housing projects. The 1980s also saw the emergence of a powerful Congressional Business and Prosperity Caucus, an alliance of pro-business politicians on Capitol Hill from all three parties. The Business and Prosperity Caucus would play an important role over the next several decades in promoting greater private home ownership. This Caucus would successfully engage with the DeFrancis (1993-1997), Gutierrez (1997-2005), Hernandez (2005-2013), and Astaire (2013-2021) administrations to enact policies meant to encourage greater private home ownership.
The Astaire administration in particular made private home ownership a core element of its government programs. For President Astaire, encouraging greater private ownership was part of a wider effort to support private enterprise. The Astaire administration, through the BHHO, engaged in higher levels of lending to would-be home owners than in previous administrations. In 2013, with the support of the Business and Prosperity Caucus in Congress, the Astaire administration also succeeded in eliminating regulations, enacted in the 1930s in response to the Business Collapse, which was intended to separate investment banking.
The Astaire administration’s policies in regards to encouraging greater private home ownership and private investment in home ownership, were echoed in similar policies that were enacted in the 2000s and 2010s in other countries, including in all of the other great powers (Austria-Hungary, Bharat, Brazil, China, Germany, Russia). The 2000s and 2010s also saw a significant increase in private lending and investment by major banks and private companies, from multiple countries, into different national housing markets. This ultimately led to the creation of real estate bubbles in many local housing markets, including in all of the great powers.
The Great Housing Crash of 2019 was the result of the simultaneous bankruptcies of several private firms, in several countries, that had been heavily engaged in speculative lending in multiple housing markets. As with the Great Recession in our world, the Great Housing Crash in TTL would be exacerbated by the temporary freeze in the now extensive system of private credit.
The United States, as well as other countries affected by the Great Housing Cash, including all of the great powers, were somewhat better equipped to respond to the emergency, due to the wide ranging powers available to governments around the world to intervene to support their respective vital industries or businesses, in the name of national security. However, the US government response to the Great Housing Crash would be hampered by the policy failures of the administration of President George Novak (2021-2025), as well as the unmitigated disaster that was the Charles Holst administration (2025-2027). The USA would not recover economically from the Great Housing Crash until the end of the 2020s.