The Great Depression began with the Wall Street crash of October 1929 and spread into a decade-long global economic slump marked by mass unemployment, bank failures, deflation and a collapse in international trade. In the worst-hit economies, unemployment reached roughly a quarter of the workforce, and industrial output fell sharply. Construction and private housing markets stalled across much of the world. Recovery was uneven and, in many countries, incomplete until rearmament late in the decade.
The crisis prompted an expanded role for the state in the economy, including New Deal public works, slum clearance and federally backed housing and mortgage programmes in the United States. It normalised government intervention in land use, infrastructure and housing finance that would shape postwar urban development.
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