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The American Dream of HomeownershipText Overview

We will read a series of analytical texts and argumentative essays on the topic of homeownership in the United States. The titles, authors, and locations of these texts are indicated in the Unit Text List. Unit Readers are available through Open Up Resources.

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • “Affordable Housing: A Debate over Core American Values,” Elijah Cummings, The Afro-American Newspapers Inc., 2018
    • “Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States” from 1963–2018, US Census Bureau and US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Public Domain, 2018
    • “Blacks and Hispanics Face Extra Challenges in Getting Home Loans,” Pew Research Center, Public Domain, 2017
    • Chapter 5: “Detached Houses: The Dream of Home Ownership,” excerpt from The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, Jim Cullen, Oxford University Press, 2003
    • “Disarming the Great Affordable Housing Debate,” Solomon Greene and Margery Austin Turner, The Urban Institute, 2015
    • Excerpt from “Chicago Housing Speech,” Martin Luther King Jr., The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor, 1966
    • Excerpts from “The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration,” Isabel Wilkerson, Smithsonian Enterprises, 2016
    • Excerpts from “Where Should a Poor Family Live?,” Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times Company, 2015
    • “Harlem,” excerpt from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Langston Hughes, Estate of Langston Hughes. Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC., 1994
    • “Home Not-So-Sweet Home,” Paul Krugman, The New York Times Company, 2008
    • “Home is...,” Various, Odell Education, 2020
    • “Home, Sweet Home,” John Howard Payne, Public Domain, 1823
    • “Redefining the Multifamily Challenge,” Ben Carson, Public Domain, 2018
    • Rental data displays from “The GAP: A Shortage of Affordable Homes,” National Low Income Housing Coalition, National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2019
    • “The Civil Rights Law We Ignored,” Walter Mondale, The New York Times Company, 2018
    • “The Dark Side of Suburbia,” Kimberly Kutz Elliott, Khan Academy, 2015
    • “The False Promise of Homeownership,” Marissa Chappell, The Washington Post, 2017
    • “The Growth of Suburbia,” Kimberly Kutz Elliott, Khan Academy, 2015
    • “Then vs. Now: Changes in Key Metrics since the First State of the Nation’s Housing Report Was Released in 1988,” Harvard Joint Studies for Housing Studies, Harvard Joint Studies for Housing Studies, 2018
    • “Why Owning a Home Is the American Dream,” Anthony Depalma, The New York Times Company, 1988
  • Digital Access
    • “Everything You Need to Know about the Affordable Housing Debate,” Matthew Yglesias, Vox, 2015
    • “Fair Housing Act,” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019
    • “Federal Housing Administration (FHA),” Marie Justine Fritz, Encyclopædia Britannica
    • “Here’s How the US Housing Market Has Been Impacted by the Crash,” Jonathan Garber, Trulia (reprinted at businessinsider.com), 2016
    • “Home Sweet Home. Still.,” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2011
    • “Housing,” National Alliance to End Homelessness, National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2020
    • “Housing Needs by State,” National Low Income Housing Coalition, National Low Income Housing Coalition
    • “How the U.S. Government Segregated Chicago,” Al Jazeera, YouTube, 2017
    • “Mapping Segregation,” Matthew Bloch, Amanda Cox, and Tom Giratikanon, The New York Times Company, 2015
    • “Martin Luther King and Fair Housing in Chicago,” Daniel Hautzinger, WTTW Chicago, 2018
    • “National Housing Act 1935,” Federal Housing Administration, YouTube, 1935
    • “Race the House We Live In,” California Newsreel, YouTube, 2003
    • “The Rise of Suburban Areas during 1950s,” AP US History Resources, YouTube
    • “The Rise of Suburbs,” CitiesX, YouTube, 2018
    • “This Is Home,” Off/Page Project, YouTube, 2014

Optional

  • Digital Access
    • “5 Facts about Millennial Households,” Richard Fry, Pew Research Center, 2017
    • “Affordable Housing Set for Spotlight of Next Presidential Campaign,” Naomi Jagoda, The Hill
    • “America’s Tent Cities for the Homeless,” Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, 2016
    • “Having a Secure Job Replaces Homeownership as the Key to Being Middle-Class,” Bruce Drake, Pew Research Center, 2013
    • “I Ain’t Got No Home,” Woody Guthrie, Woody Guthrie Publications, 1961
    • “In a Recovering Market, Homeownership Rates Are Down Sharply for Blacks, Young Adults,” Richard Fry and Anna Brown, Pew Research Center, 2016
    • “Little Boxes,” Pete Seeger, YouTube
    • “Minorities, Immigrants and Homeownership,” Rakesh Kochhar, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, and Daniel Dockterman, Pew Research Center
    • “More U.S. Households Are Renting Than at Any Point in 50 Years,” Anthony Cilluffo, A.W. Geiger, and Richard Fry, Pew Research Center, 2017
    • “One-in-Five Homeowners Feels ‘Underwater’ on Mortgages,” Tom Rosentiel, Pew Research Center
    • “Poetry Exposes Truth about Public Housing in the Bay Area,” Victoria Fleischer, PBS
    • “Quarterly Residential Vacancies and Homeownership, Fourth Quarter 2019,” United States Census Bureau, United States Census Bureau
    • “Robert Samuelson: Challenging What We Know about the Housing Bubble,” Robert Samuelson, The Washington Post
    • Sections 1–6 from “How Mortgages Work,” Lee Ann Obringer and Dave Roos, HowStuffWorks, 2002
    • “Should the Government Encourage Home Ownership?,” Daniel Indiviglio, The Atlantic, 2010
    • “Subprime Mortgage Crisis,” John V. Duca, Federal Reserve History, 2013
    • “The Crisis of Credit Visualized,” Jonathon Jarvis, YouTube, 2011
    • “The State of the Nation’s Housing,” Harvard Joint Studies for Housing Studies, Harvard Joint Studies for Housing Studies, 2018
    • “This Man is the Father of American Suburbia,” Smithsonian Channel, YouTube
    • “Woody Guthrie — I Ain’t Got No Home/Old Man Trump by the Missin’ Cousins.,” The Missin’ Cousins, YouTube, 2016
    • “Witness the Impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–08,” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2014
  • Unit Reader
    • “Little Boxes,” Malvina Reynolds, Schroder Music Co., 1962
    • “Obama Unveils Stricter Rules about Segregation in Housing,” Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times Company, 2015
    • “Trump Administration Postpones an Obama Fair-Housing Rule,” Emily Badger and John Eligon, The New York Times Company, 2018
  • Tradebook
    • Excerpts from Act 2 of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry, Random House, 1959

Text Icons

The following text icons are used in the Text pages:

Unit Reader Unit Reader Texts

Digital Access Digital Access Texts

Tradebook Tradebook Texts

Multimedia Multimedia Texts

To find digital access texts on the Internet, complete the following steps:

  1. Locate the reference information for the text (text title, author, date of publication, and publisher) found on the Text page for a unit, section, or lesson.

  2. Highlight and copy the reference information.

  3. Paste the information into a search engine.

  4. The text will appear as one of the first search results.

  5. Verify the result by comparing the reference information on the website to the information on the Text page.