Housing industry backwardness was blamed for economic depressions and slow recovery

Evidence

The housing expert Charles Abrams made the point in especially dramatic terms in 1946. The notorious backwardness of the housing industry was “a major factor responsible for precipitating economic depressions as well as retarding recovery,” Abrams wrote. “The challenge to the postwar democracy – whether it can employ its people and distribute its goods and services more equitably – cannot be met without a solution of the housing problem.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 116

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: American economists saw depressions as regular, self-correcting features of capitalism — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 321

Broader Connections

• American economists saw depressions as regular, self-correcting features of capitalism #qualifies (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 321