Sugrue thoughts

The coupling of Sugrue with Cohen's book from last week really help to build on one another. They both find the progress of industrial urban decline even before WWII. The strongest connection I noticed was the connection between the ideal of homeownership as being an integral ideal of American citizenship. In fact, Sugrue uses this point to argue that much of the violence and discrimination by homogeneous white suburban communities can't be explain away as simply racism but needs to be viewed as political action. While Cohen and Sugrue agree that the government played a large role in the desirability of homeownership, Sugrue expounds on its effects on the urban black population which were creating for themselves the same ideals with unfortunate results (72).
Another parallel between the two is a special consideration of the efforts of mostly suburban areas attempting to maintain a handle on local control of their neighborhoods. For Cohen and Sugrue this helped to perpetuate racial tension and segregation. One interesting point that Sugrue makes though is again in his complex analysis of the urban crisis. The plight of the poor urban black population for Sugrue can't be boiled down to simply racism/discrimination. Whites--especially working class whites--were vying for a certain "identification survival" (as they were also being displaced by de-industrialization of the cities) which helped to intensify their political diplomatic and violent protests of racial integration.