Conservatives warned private failure to house the poor invited European-style public housing

Evidence

The Hoover administration was quick to point out the potential threat to conservative economic values. In the foreword to the conference report on slums and blighted areas, for example, Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur issued a stern warning to “those who look upon government operations in housing construction with abhorrence.” If the building industry failed to produce affordable housing for the working class, “it seems likely that American cities will be forced to turn to European methods of solution of this problem, through subsidization by State and municipal treasuries and probably through actual ownership and operation of housing projects by municipal authority.” The issue surely would be decided in the next ten years, Wilbur concluded, and the business community needed to meet the challenge aggressively: “There is no compromise – no timid or partial solution.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 98

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the classic American pattern — fear of ‘European methods’ pushing private/market solutions — later mirrored in the environmental regulation story where sprawl’s costs drove state intervention the industry resisted. — connects to: Conservative cost-cutting produced Britain’s worst postwar housing failures, not leftist ideology — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 467

Broader Connections

• Conservative cost-cutting produced Britain’s worst postwar housing failures, not leftist ideology #contradicts (0.85) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 467