Hofmaimaierthat's weird
SwingingTheLampThere may be an argument about how the two are linked, but the -ism on display in the second photo is racism. The US built the suburbs quite explicitly to keep black people out by using poverty as a proxy, after the SCOTUS blocked housing segregation.
Racism AND capitalism.
The “single family home” was barely a concept before American development early last century. For the majority of human history, people dwelled together, raised families together, stayed together and supported each other their whole lives.
It was the housing industry making these “neighborhoods of the future” that started pushing the idea of moving out at 18 and getting a home on your steel-mill salary of $10 per week, and then it became shameful to still live with your family past a certain age. Forcing so many Americans into a role of being a sole-provider for an entire household as wages have dropped and house prices have soared, and we all still keep “investing” into homes in suburbia despite nobody feeling fulfilled in these cul-de-sac lives.
This is largely ahistorical, ignoring factors like:
- Availability of land
- The desire for privacy
- The invention and spread of the car making living further from places of work practical
- The desire for (ones own) outdoor space
The desire for privacy should, in particular, be obvious to the fediverse’s privacy conscious users: I don’t necessarily want my parents, grandparents, children, siblings, nephews and nieces all knowing:
- What I’m reading/watching on TV
- How my music practice is going
- What I’m having for dinner
- What time I go to bed
- When and with whom I have sex
- etc
There are many reasons why it’s not sustainable to focus on them as the main unit of housing, but the rise of detached houses corresponds to living standards rising to the point where it was something people could afford. It’s not a nefarious plot orchestrated by a secret cabal.