Tim Keogh on Suburban Poverty and the Roots of Postwar Inequality

Tim Keogh on Suburban Poverty and the Roots of Postwar Inequality

In 2022, roughly one in 10 suburban residents lived in poverty (9.6%), compared to about one in six in primary cities (16.2%), according to a recent study by the Brookings Institute. The issue of suburban poverty has garnered significant attention, prompting more than a bit of nostalgia for the good ole days of when suburbs were prosperous, living proof of the American dream. This narrative of postwar suburbia as prosperous, if also exclusive places, has been reinforced by historians and other scholars who, over the years, have shown how the federal government via FHA-insured mortgages and other programs facilitated a dramatic rise in suburban homeownership after WWII, while laregely restricting access through covenants and zoning laws to White Americans.

But is this the full story? In this month's episode, Tim Keogh challenges this narrative, demonstrating that for many the postwar American suburban dream was more myth than reality. Alongside exclusive white middle-class communities, Keogh explains how the suburbs have long served as home to low-income residents, whose labor in construction, retail, childcare and a range of other low-wage jobs helped enable suburban prosperity in the absence of a robust welfare state. Along the way, we explore the policy decisions that helped to ensure poverty's persistence alongside prosperity and what we can do today to eliminate poverty wherever it might appear.

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Joan Flores-Villalobos on How Black Women's Labor Made the Panama Canal

Joan Flores-Villalobos on How Black Women's Labor Made the Panama Canal

When it was completed in 1914, the Panama Canal nearly halved the travel time between the U.S. West Coast and Europe and revolutionized trade and travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It's c...

4 Touko 202349min

Christy Thornton on Mexico, Development, and Governing the Global Economy

Christy Thornton on Mexico, Development, and Governing the Global Economy

In this month's episode, Christy Thornton discusses the surprising influence of post-revolutionary Mexico on some of the twentieth century's most important international economic institutions, includi...

5 Huhti 202342min

Special Episode on the Military and the Market

Special Episode on the Military and the Market

This month, we welcomed Jennifer Mittelstadt back to the show, joined by Mark Wilson, to discuss their new edited volume, The Military and the Market. Moving beyond familiar topics like defense spendi...

7 Maalis 202346min

Allan Lumba on Monetary Authorities in the American Colonial Philippines

Allan Lumba on Monetary Authorities in the American Colonial Philippines

In this episode, historian Allan Lumba explores how the United States wielded monetary authority in the colonial Philippines, including the role of money as a tool for countering decolonization, entre...

2 Helmi 202338min

Chad Pearson on Klansmen, Employer Vigilantes, and Labor Suppression in the Long Nineteenth Century

Chad Pearson on Klansmen, Employer Vigilantes, and Labor Suppression in the Long Nineteenth Century

This month's episode takes listeners back in time to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time of significant labor unrest. At the time, employers, often with government support, went to great le...

5 Joulu 202235min

Ghassan Moazzin on Foreign Banks and the Making of Modern China

Ghassan Moazzin on Foreign Banks and the Making of Modern China

This month's episode picks up on a theme previously explored on the podcast: international finance. Drawing on a broad range of German, English, Japanese, and Chinese sources, Ghassan Moazzin traces ...

3 Loka 202233min

Claire Dunning on Nonprofit Neighborhoods and Urban Inequality

Claire Dunning on Nonprofit Neighborhoods and Urban Inequality

In this month's episode, Claire Dunning explains how and why non-profits came to play such an important role in U.S. cities after World War II. In doing so, she explores the emergence of non-profit ne...

2 Elo 202249min

Mircea Raianu on Tata and Global Capitalism in India

Mircea Raianu on Tata and Global Capitalism in India

In this episode, Mircea Raianu traces the rise of the Tata Group, one of India's largest and oldest companies, from its early days involved in cotton and opium trading to multinational conglomerate in...

7 Heinä 202249min

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