In Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America, Michael Glass explores the growth of Long Island’s suburbs as a proxy for the nation. In particular, Glass reveals the role that debt and debt financing played in constructing a suburban landscape that by the 1950s and 60s had become mired in complicated and costly economic structures that contributed to great inequality in housing and education for residents. Even when state reforms, such as New York’s “equalization” efforts, attempted to solve or mitigate these issues, they often, Glass notes, “reinforced rather than mitigated local wealth disparities.” (11) Historian Ryan Reft sat down with Glass to explore the book’s themes.
Your work seems to be in dialogue with recent books by Destin Jenkins, Andrew Kahrl, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a body of literature that looks at the impact of debt, debt financing, and taxation policies at the intersection of race and housing. What does Cracked Foundations and the work by this cohort tell us that’s new about American homeownership and suburbanization?
You’re absolutely right that these scholars are major influences on my work, and I appreciate you noticing those connections!
Taken together, Taylor (on home mortgages), Jenkins (municipal debt), and Kahrl (property taxes) have shown how race fundamentally structured these financial systems. Segregation has persisted not only because of exclusionary policies like redlining, but also because of how these systems generate value and distribute resources. In other words, these authors have followed the money.
My big contribution is to apply these same insights to the suburbs. Urban historians are familiar with the long and sordid history of racial exclusion in the suburbs. However, we’ve often elided the differences between neighboring suburbs. I show how mortgages, bonds, and property taxes produced race and class inequality across Long Island. In many ways, the strains were even more intense in the suburbs. The small size of these municipalities made them more beholden to financial systems. Realtors and developers dominate suburban politics to a greater degree than in cities, and Levittown wields far less power in the bond market than a city like New York.
My book shows that delivering housing and education through debt financing made suburban life unsteady and precarious from the very beginning.
Why did Long Island become the subject of your book?
Before going to graduate school, I worked for many years as a public high school teacher in New York City. That experience sparked an interest in educational inequality, and my research initially focused on New York City.