Introduction
The stock market crash of 1929 caught the entire nation off guard.
Stocks, as a form of investment, had previously always been proven
a lucrative option. Due to their high growth rate, American citizens began
taking risks (like borrowing on margin) which the government had not
regulated against. That is why when the market finally did crash,
the entire nation was sent into a desperate panic. Banks not only
foreclosed on families' homes, but they forced their debtors to sell most
of their major possessions in order to repay debts.
It
was in the middle of the
Great Depression that Franklin D.
Roosevelt became president. Following the
Hoover Administration, which
proved to be relatively ineffective in aiding the economy, Roosevelt took
an active stance in economic reform. He initiated an "alphabet soup" (so
named because every government organization was known by its initials) of
aggressive reform programs which was to provide governmental injections
and aid the economy under Keynsian theory. One man who played an
instrumental role in the nation's economic recovery was Rexford Tugwell.
Tugwell (a member of Roosevelt's Brain Trust) was a major supporter of
building planned communities, and in 1935, he persuaded the president to
create the
Resettlement Administration. It was under this program that the
planned Greenbelt
community was built in Maryland.
In 1935, the United States government bought infertile farmland
for below market value (~$97 per acre) in three areas of the country. The
ground breaking in October, 1935 began a two year construction period
which not only provided labor, but ensured affordable homes for
desperately destitute people. The community consisted of 574 masonry
townhouses,
5 prefabricated detached houses, and 306 garden apartments.
(GB Museum) However, what made the development of Greenbelt so significant
was that it was one of the few communities in which the government had
total control over what type of people could move in and the
rules/regulations that they must live by. It is in that sense that it can
also be compared with a condominium community.
A condominium is "housing in which each dwelling is a separate
piece of real estate," (World Book) yet the units are affiliated with each
other. The halls, stairways, and other "common grounds" are owned and used
by all property owners. Although no prior authorization is required to
move into a condo community, there are several rules by which all
neighbors agree to abide, and there are steep consequences when they fail
to comply.
Therefore, this paper attempts to investigate the similarities and
differences between the methods used to control the inhabitants of both
the Greenbelt and condominium communities, as well as their resulting
effectiveness. In doing this, a focus will be placed on the planning of
the communities (architecture, facilities, and transportation) and
community interaction, as well as the population's social structure and
the rules by which they are governed. (Rogers)