A Town Named Eleanor

On Christmas Eve, the NY Times ran a story about Eleanor, W.VA, a homestead community created by the federal government during the Depression as a way to put people to work and give poor people a better place to live. It was one of a plethora of towns built from scratch by out of work laborers and "resettled" with (white) families, many of whom were awestruck at their new homes' indoor plumbing. Families selected to live in these communities had to meet work, behavioral and civic obligations - holding a job, doing well in school, participating in community activities.

Our government's former ambitiousness in fighting poverty never fails to surprise and move and frustrate me. Enterprising new towns for struggling families have been replaced by incomplete, speculative private developments of McMansions gone bust.  Job creation programs that even included federally-sponsored writers are inconceivable now; all we've gotten to date is an incomplete stimulus and a lot of rhetoric. Our laudatory history is marred by racial exclusion, yet our progress on this metric remains lacking.

As we move into 2010, we can look back on some historic national accomplishments in 2009: the stimulus, health insurance reform, Obama's inauguration. But even these achievements are marred by a sense of timidity or constrained by conventional thinking: the stimulus was incomplete, health insurance reform is not healthcare reform, the Reagan-praising Obama has stacked his Administration with many neoliberal elites that contributed to the economic collapse on view today.

What I'd like to see in the New Year is a break from Obama's conflict-avoidance style of governance and a more complete fulfillment of his soaring Inaugural rhetoric - to rebuild our country, not just by repairing infrastructure, creating jobs, or making rents more affordable, but by pushing back on our very resigned view of the world that our government exists merely to facilitate market dictates, that it is subordinate to market whims, and that we as a people must take matters into our own hands - whether through charity or vigiliantism - because our government has forsaken us. Building a prosperous, equitable society requires civic participation, healthy markets, and a strong government to determine the rules of engagement and create a level playing field for people and businesses. Sometimes that means building whole towns to give families a second chance. Someday it will mean legalizing the universal right to healthcare. Perhaps then, this week's legislation is an important first step?

(Photo of Eleanor Roosevelt holding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Wikimedia Commons. For a deeper understanding of Roosevelt's role in the UDHR and how it complicated reaching full equality for African-Americans in the US, see Carol Anderson's Eyes Off the Prize.)