Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds
Reynolds was a folk singer-songwriter and political activist in the 1960s. Nancy Reynolds, her daughter, explained that her mother came up with the song when she saw the housing developments around Daly City, California built in the post-war era by Henry Doelger, particularly the neighborhood of Westlake.
“My mother and father were driving South from San Francisco through Daly City when my mom got the idea for the song. She asked my dad to take the wheel, and she wrote it on the way to the gathering in La Honda where she was going to sing for the Friends Committee on Legislation. When Time magazine (I think, maybe Newsweek) wanted a photo of her pointing to the very place, she couldn’t find those houses because so many more had been built around them that the hillsides were totally covered.”
