Federal policy enabled tract developers to take most of the housing market

Evidence

The legislation worked. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the homeownership rate skyrocketed, topping 60 percent in 1956. The number of housing starts reached record highs. Builders constructed over 15 million homes in the 1950s, more than twice the total for the 1940s and nearly six times the figure for the 1930s. In a remarkably short period of time, the tract-house developer became the dominant force in the industry. By 1959, large-scale builders were responsible for 64 percent of the housing market, compared to just 24 percent in 1949 and 5 percent in 1938. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 121

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Federal mortgage insurance, not private profit, first promoted large-scale tract homebuilding — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 106