In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • A World of Homeowners: American Power and the Politics of Housing Aid by Nancy H. Kwak
  • Max Hirsh (bio)
Nancy H. Kwak A World of Homeowners: American Power and the Politics of Housing Aid Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. 328 pages, 30 black-and-white illustrations. ISBN: 978–0-226–28235–0, $45.00, HB ISBN: 978–0-226–28249–7, $10.00- $45.00 EB

Nancy Kwak's A World of Homeowners investigates how the American model of homeownership became the dominant housing ideal around the world in the decades after World War II. Situating her study against the wider geopolitical backdrop of the Cold War and decolonization, Kwak applies a transnational approach to the history of housing policy by tracing the diffusion of American ideas about single-family homeownership which, she claims, on the book jacket, "became one of America's major exports and defining characteristics around the world." Focusing primarily on Asia and Latin America, Kwak traces a genealogy of U.S. government-funded aid programs designed to popularize the home-ownership ideal and to provide technical and financial assistance to developing countries in order to realize that goal.

These housing aid programs acted as vehicles for addressing broader societal challenges and geopolitical concerns. On the one hand, the United States sought to address the acute shortage of housing and building materials—along with the dramatic influx of refugees into urban centers—that confronted many countries in the aftermath of World War II. By providing "decent shelter" to millions of displaced and marginalized citizens, American policymakers hoped that housing assistance programs would prevent social unrest and stabilize precarious political and economic conditions. At the same time, by addressing the most pressing needs of the masses (or at least of laborers in essential industries, as in the case of Taiwanese dock-workers), American housing aid acted as a deterrent against the spread of communism.

Moreover, by propagating a model of owner-occupied homes built by private developers and financed via a system of government-backed mortgages, the American policymakers (and their friends in the U.S. real estate industry) aimed to dissuade developing nations from pursuing European-style models of publicly funded social housing. They believed that the American system of homeownership was uniquely suited to abetting the formation of a mass middle class, which, in turn, would bolster open markets and (purportedly) democratic institutions, as well as create millions of jobs in the construction industry. In places like Kuomintang-controlled Taiwan, owner-occupied housing schemes would thus function as the glue that bound together workers, labor unions, government, and an incipient bourgeoisie through mutual financial interests.

These short- and long-term objectives led to a range of housing assistance programs, both large and small, that aimed to establish single-family homeownership as the prevailing mode of dwelling throughout the world. Kwak begins by investigating the ideals and ideological underpinnings of that model, and charts the institutional processes by which housing expertise was exported around the world. Through myriad aid programs, the U.S. government dispatched leading architects and architecture critics—such as Catherine Bauer and William Wurster—to developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, many of which had only recently gained independence as Japan and the Western powers retreated from their imperial ambitions. [End Page 113] Often these outreach efforts built on existing colonial relations, notably in Puerto Rico and the Philippines, where American architects like Daniel Burnham had already left their mark with their City Beautiful planning schemes.

Through a series of case studies, Kwak contrasts the housing programs' theoretical agenda with the often messy reality that American advisors encountered on the ground in places like Taiwan, South Korea, and Puerto Rico, which all served as test-beds for experimental housing policies. In so doing, she investigates how American policies were adapted, mixed, and modified in response to local social, spatial, and regulatory norms. (These guidelines also had to engage with preexisting housing policies that had been implemented by former colonial powers.)

In South Korea, for example, American experts were dismayed when government regulators, along with potential customers, rejected the building materials and spatial layouts that U.S. consultants had selected...

pdf

Share