In 1988, a local dispute in East Hampton, Long Island, received national attention. An affluent couple was threatening to sue their town for refusing them a permit to build a second swimming pool at their ocean-front home. While the dispute hinged on issues of zoning restrictions and environmental protection, the story was widely reported due to its almost comical justification of Thorstein Veblen's 1899 critique of the "leisure class." If one backyard pool is an emblem of comfort and leisure, two pools at an ocean-front home exemplify conspicuous consumption run amok.

At the same time, a different sort of swimming pool controversy was raging in Greenspoint, New York. Residents of this Brooklyn neighborhood bitterly disagreed about what should be done with the crumbling remains of the McCarren Park municipal pool. Some in the community, especially the Latino and African American residents, wanted the pool restored to its former...