The FHA and the “Culture of Abundance” at the 1935 San Diego World's Fair |
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| Authors: | Matthew F Bokovoy |
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| Affiliation: | Professors at the University of Toledo. Their respective fields are geography, political science, and sociology. For the past six years they have functioned as an interdisciplinary research team in the areas of mental health, alcoholism, drug abuse, and criminal justice. Their work in these areas has focused on planning, program evaluation, organizational analysis, and the design of management and client information systems. |
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| Abstract: | This article explores the national debate about modern housing in Southern California during the 1930s through an examination of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) participation at the 1935 San Diego World's Fair. Shaped by the political and cultural crises of the Depression, the FHA's first exhibition of model housing contained two contradictory impulses: an idealistic and social democratic architectural modernism and a sound bottom-line promotion of the real estate industry. These original dual impulses indicated that suburban expansion and industrial dispersion were not the only alternatives to demographic and industrial growth in Southern California after World War II. The social idealism embedded within numerous examples of model housing suggested that patterns of development and housing in Southern California and the nation might be more egalitarian and democratic: true mixed-use communities characterized by variety in social class complexion and, by implication, race and ethnicity. For a number of important reasons, by the 1940s, FHA financial requirements did not push suburban developers to change their operations much from the 1920s. In the end, the FHA only federalized the voluntary and arbitrary practices created by the housing division of the Commerce Department for the real estate industry of the 1920s. |
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