An Unspoken History on Housing Segregation
Book: Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law
For many who live in big cities, I think we’re familiar to the various ethnic communities within a city, and how the demographic of those that live there follow. In parallel, things like restaurants, colleges, and corporations form based on the needs of that community (or the other way around). I thought it’ll be interesting to see what this racial breakdown looks like for Boston, and it’s certainly fascinating.
This looks right based on how I know Boston — you have the colleges, MIT, Harvard, Boston University, that create the diversity in the Cambridge/Allston area, Chinatown as the bright red in Boston, and going south to Dorchester is mainly African American and Hispanic. We typically see this as a result of de-facto segregation, or private practices, such as certain races choosing to live next to each other, an income and rent disparity, and education. Boston is definitely an interesting city in regards to renting and property ownership, as the high number of colleges makes it somewhat of a transient city for many.
Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law, argues that the housing segregation we see today, specifically for African Americans, is in large a result of de-jure segregation — in other words, a direct result of law and government policy. The Color of Law looks into the government policies in the mid-twientieth century that enforced residential racial segregation.
Public Housing
Rothstein looks at the history of public housing — originally formed as projects to address the lack of housing in WWII — now known as heavily subsidized, low-income living conditions. These projects in the 1940s were initially segregated to ‘reflect the racial composition of the neighborhood’, and following the war, the fear of integration among city politicians kept it separated. As the lack of housing for African Americans were increasing, liberals in the Senate were forced to allow designs of segregated projects to continue or risk not having them at all. The 1949 Housing Act permitted local authorities to continue to design separate public housing projects for blacks and whites. Local governments and the HUD used various methods to disallow proposals that would bring about integration; for example, on the basis that projects which might include black tenants should not belong where it was not ‘accepted’. A city had veto power over proposed projects, in which a district judge found that “No criterion, other than race, can plausibly explain the veto of over 99% of the housing units located on the White’s sites”. The real estate industry also fought the presence of public housing, and upper income limits to renters left it only for the poorest families. This meant public projects were left poorly funded, not well maintained, and defined by the racial character of the neighborhood.
Racial Zoning
Racial zoning in the mid 1900s was a common strategy to keep out poorer black families. Despite the Supreme Court decision in Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 stating that racial zoning interfered with the right of a property owner to sell to whomever he pleased, many southern states in the 1920s found ways to disguise racial zoning as ‘economic concerns’ or ‘promoting peace within a community’. Federal zoning laws also perpetuated this evasion in which a model on zoning laws that was typically on the basis of income was allowed. Written by The Advisory Committee on Zoning — organized by then secretary of commerce Herbert Hoover — the model was careful to not make open references to race. However, this committee was led by segregationalists who held those positions “in any housing developments which are to succeed..racial divisions..have to be taken into account” and “[zoning] was necessary to maintain the nation and the race”. A code of ethics published two years after issued a warning that realtors should “[consider race] whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values”. Meanwhile, multiple studies found race being a 1 in 10,000 statistical predictor to ‘industrial development areas’, that included toxic waste zoning, to be found more likely in African American neighborhoods. Rothstein suggests that this adoption of zoning ordinances contributed to the creation of exclusive white suburbs, and the creation of urban African American slums.
Home Ownership
To deter wealthier African Americans, Rothstein claims that the government persuaded white families to move to single family suburban homes; once this was underway, they made it hard for African Americans to follow. The 1920s saw a big effort to promote property ownership by Better Homes in America, an organization headed by Hoover. It’s guidance on ownership urged buyers to consider the ‘general type of people living in the neighborhood’ before making the purchase. Director James Ford, also the overseer of the Whites-only public housing, explained that “apartments were the worst kind of housing, frequently overcrowded because of the ‘ignorant racial habit’ of African Americans…”
In the 1930s, metropolitian areas were divided by zones based in part on race to determine foreclosure risk and home mortgages. The Federal Housing Administration (FSA) were the financiers of entire suburbs and often refused African Americans mortgage insurance or considered them too risky (known as redlining). Builders were encouraged to construct all-white subdivisions by guaranteeing bank loans from the FSA. Rothstein argues that the FSA financed these developments on the condition that it will be all white, with no foreseeable change in its racial composition.
At a community level, associations were typically formed that wrote racial covenants to prohibit sales to black families. The Supreme Court upheld this policy in 1926, finding that they were voluntary private contracts and not state actions. It wasn’t until Shelley v. Kraemer in 1948, did enforcement of racially restrictive housing covenants became prohibited.
Other Tactics
Rothstein discusses a multitude of other tactics employed at both the federal and local level. These were actions such as encouraging white migration out of communities to depress housing values (white flight), denying public access to utilities, and manipulating zoning designations to prevent African Americans from building and moving in. One of Rothstein’s main point, that despite many of these actions being private, is the fact that some government official was fully aware this was happening and did not take adequate steps to prevent them — meaning its a form of expressed state policy. For example, the violence to African Americans (vandalism, arson, rioting) at their homes were well within the know of the police department but was not appropriately addressed, “of more than one hundred incidents of move-in bombings and vandalism…only one led to an arrest and prosecution”.
The Implications Today
Housing segregation has deep implications today as it extends far past just having a place to live. The consequence of staying in poor neighborhoods, having fewer access to proper schools and resources, becomes a perpetual cycle. Social mobility within African Americans is shocking — 53% born to parents in the bottom quintile stay there as adults. We also see a significant housing appreciation in the past decades, in which white property owners saw an increase in wealth while blacks gained no equity. Rothstein discusses using the tax code to penalize or regulations to require new developments to always set aside a number of new projects or units to low and moderate income families. Reform to provide better subsidies to these families will help move them into lower poverty areas and promote better integration.
An article from the NY Times, however, talks to how it might not be that simple, “Affluent black families, freed from the restrictions of low income, often end up living in poor and segregated communities anyway.” For families making over 100k a year, 37% of black families still live in poor areas (per capita income 20% lower than national), compared to 9% of whites. It’s a combination of decades of hostility, many of the same dynamics discussed in Rothstein’s book, and the benefit of having a community that shares the same struggles others cannot see.
I think one of the important things though is that efforts toward housing integration provides black families with the choice. A choice to break out of the cycle. A choice to normalize and really be a starting point towards a society in which racial segregation does not exist in either de-jure or de-facto.
