This song is a critique of the Post-World War II trend of building neighborhoods and even towns out of copycat houses. Seeger is saying that these houses have no personality and the inhabitants are empty because the individual is not celebrated. Places like Levittown NY were "manufactured" communities where houses were put up in a matter of weeks and one neighborhood looked the same as the next.
This song is a critique of the Post-World War II trend of building neighborhoods and even towns out of copycat houses. Seeger is saying that these houses have no personality and the inhabitants are empty because the individual is not celebrated. Places like Levittown NY were "manufactured" communities where houses were put up in a matter of weeks and one neighborhood looked the same as the next.