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Property Values: The Rise and Fall of the American Homeowner
A wide-ranging history of American land ownership, from westward expansion to the suburban housing crisis
From its very beginnings, the United States has defined itself by its relationship to land. Settlers saw the continent as the raw material for building a prosperous life while their leaders viewed it as a means for building a people. In the 1950s, the suburban home became a place for Americans to create a personal utopia of lawns and living rooms, of washing machines and dishwashers. Property Values traces how land and its ownership became inextricably tied to the American ideal of independence—and demonstrates why the Homestead Act and a thirty-year mortgage have far more in common than you think.
In this engaging book, Joshua Specht uncovers the history behind the American conviction that widespread land ownership is a fundamental requirement for a flourishing democratic society. We meet the nineteenth-century settler farmers whose dreams of new social and political forms were built on vast quantities of land taken from native peoples, and the European immigrants who came seeking a better life as land-owning citizens. For FDR, homeownership offered a path out of the depths of the Great Depression. For George W. Bush, it gave people a permanent stake in the American dream. Specht charts how the vision of plenty that first drew homesteaders westward gave way to one of scarcity and exclusion as new neighbors came to be seen as a threat to property values and a system meant to promote ownership put it squarely out of reach for many.
Taking readers from the rent wars of the early 1840s through the financial crisis of the late 2000s, Property Values reveals why housing affordability has posed significant challenges to the nation’s politics and promise since the founding, and why the American story has always been one about land.
From its very beginnings, the United States has defined itself by its relationship to land. Settlers saw the continent as the raw material for building a prosperous life while their leaders viewed it as a means for building a people. In the 1950s, the suburban home became a place for Americans to create a personal utopia of lawns and living rooms, of washing machines and dishwashers. Property Values traces how land and its ownership became inextricably tied to the American ideal of independence—and demonstrates why the Homestead Act and a thirty-year mortgage have far more in common than you think.
In this engaging book, Joshua Specht uncovers the history behind the American conviction that widespread land ownership is a fundamental requirement for a flourishing democratic society. We meet the nineteenth-century settler farmers whose dreams of new social and political forms were built on vast quantities of land taken from native peoples, and the European immigrants who came seeking a better life as land-owning citizens. For FDR, homeownership offered a path out of the depths of the Great Depression. For George W. Bush, it gave people a permanent stake in the American dream. Specht charts how the vision of plenty that first drew homesteaders westward gave way to one of scarcity and exclusion as new neighbors came to be seen as a threat to property values and a system meant to promote ownership put it squarely out of reach for many.
Taking readers from the rent wars of the early 1840s through the financial crisis of the late 2000s, Property Values reveals why housing affordability has posed significant challenges to the nation’s politics and promise since the founding, and why the American story has always been one about land.
440 pages, Hardcover
Published September 15, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2026
I thoroughly enjoyed Property Values, a look at American history through the lens of land and home. Author Joshua Specht deftly lays out the importance of both to the nation’s growth, as well as their importance to government policy and the nation’s own view of itself.
From the beginning of the independence of the United States land and how it is to be used lies at the heart of our country’s story. The treaty that ended the war gave the United States territory west of the former colonies and the Appalachian Mountains that was largely unsettled by Europeans, though the home of several Indian nations. George Washington, and other Founding Fathers had been land speculators in this territory before the war — territory that the English crown had wished to remain in Indian hands.
But now that it belonged to the United States this western territory was opened for white settlement. The new nation felt the country must be populated by its citizens. There was a fundamental link, based on centuries of European experience, between land ownership and representative government which persisted in the young nation. With land ownership went responsibility and a role in governing the nation through voting.
Unlike the British, the new nation did not view Native Americans as nations but as an unfortunate impediment to westward expansion who were best removed.
As the new nation grew, Indian removal was formalized into law and the notion grew that the lands thus newly available for settlement should be given, free, to entice settlement. The Free Soil political party was formed to carry the idea forward. But the notion of “yeoman homesteaders” clashed with the ideas of Southern slaveholders, for whom large landholding in the form of plantations were the wealth-creation machines of their time. These clashes (both political and in real-world violence) grew until the Civil War.
After the Civil War the free soil idea carried the day and the Homestead Act became law. The notion of “landed democracy” spread as the nation grew westward. Soon the nation grew to the end of the frontier and had no more land to expand into.
As farming had expanded across the nation crops became commodities making for less profits for the yeoman landholders. The need for all those farmers shrank as economies of scale were needed in the new commodity economy. The focus of the nation shifted to the city. Here the notion of “landed democracy” transformed into the “ownership society”. The American Dream of picket-fenced home was born.
Specht continues this history up to the present day, with segregation and redlining, the property tax revolt of the late 1970s, the growth of the HOA and the 2008 financial crisis all documented.
I loved this fresh look at American history. The early chapters especially, on the rise of “landed democracy” built on many of the same notions covered in the book America, América by Greg Grandin, which I just read. If you are a history book lover this is one I highly recommend.
From the beginning of the independence of the United States land and how it is to be used lies at the heart of our country’s story. The treaty that ended the war gave the United States territory west of the former colonies and the Appalachian Mountains that was largely unsettled by Europeans, though the home of several Indian nations. George Washington, and other Founding Fathers had been land speculators in this territory before the war — territory that the English crown had wished to remain in Indian hands.
But now that it belonged to the United States this western territory was opened for white settlement. The new nation felt the country must be populated by its citizens. There was a fundamental link, based on centuries of European experience, between land ownership and representative government which persisted in the young nation. With land ownership went responsibility and a role in governing the nation through voting.
Unlike the British, the new nation did not view Native Americans as nations but as an unfortunate impediment to westward expansion who were best removed.
As the new nation grew, Indian removal was formalized into law and the notion grew that the lands thus newly available for settlement should be given, free, to entice settlement. The Free Soil political party was formed to carry the idea forward. But the notion of “yeoman homesteaders” clashed with the ideas of Southern slaveholders, for whom large landholding in the form of plantations were the wealth-creation machines of their time. These clashes (both political and in real-world violence) grew until the Civil War.
After the Civil War the free soil idea carried the day and the Homestead Act became law. The notion of “landed democracy” spread as the nation grew westward. Soon the nation grew to the end of the frontier and had no more land to expand into.
As farming had expanded across the nation crops became commodities making for less profits for the yeoman landholders. The need for all those farmers shrank as economies of scale were needed in the new commodity economy. The focus of the nation shifted to the city. Here the notion of “landed democracy” transformed into the “ownership society”. The American Dream of picket-fenced home was born.
Specht continues this history up to the present day, with segregation and redlining, the property tax revolt of the late 1970s, the growth of the HOA and the 2008 financial crisis all documented.
I loved this fresh look at American history. The early chapters especially, on the rise of “landed democracy” built on many of the same notions covered in the book America, América by Greg Grandin, which I just read. If you are a history book lover this is one I highly recommend.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews