American ghettos

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Protest sign at a housing project in Detroit, 1942 We want white tenants.jpg
Protest sign at a housing project in Detroit, 1942

Ghettos in the United States are typically urban neighborhoods perceived as being high in crime and poverty. The origins of these areas are specific to the United States and its laws, which created ghettos through both legislation and private efforts to segregate America for political, economic, social, and ideological reasons: de jure [1] and de facto segregation. De facto segregation continues today in ways such as residential segregation and school segregation because of contemporary behavior and the historical legacy of de jure segregation.

Contents

American ghettos therefore, are communities and neighborhoods where government has not only concentrated a minority group, but established barriers to its exit. [1] “Inner city” is often used to avoid the word ghetto, but typically denotes the same idea. Geographic examples of American ghettos are seen in large urban centers such as New York City, Chicago, and Detroit.

Description

Graffiti on wall in Chicago ghetto GRAFFITI ON A WALL IN CHICAGO. SUCH WRITING HAS ADVANCED AND BECOME AN ART FORM, PARTICULARLY IN METROPOLITAN AREAS.... - NARA - 556232.tif
Graffiti on wall in Chicago ghetto

"American ghetto" usually denotes an urban neighborhood with crime, gang violence, and extreme poverty, [2] [3] with a significant number of minority citizens living in it.

Their origins are manifold. Historically, violence has been used to intimidate certain demographics into remaining in ghettos. [4] The "deindustrialization" of minorities and the lower class Americans also contributed to ghetto-forming in inner cities. Additional causes of deteriorating conditions in ghettos ranged from lack of jobs and extreme poverty to menacing streets and violence. [5] Development of ghettos through modern housing segregation can also be blamed on de facto racism as well as de jure segregation. Centralized racism began the segregation, but, with the legal barriers to entry for blacks having fallen, the price rather than the legality of living in certain areas has excluded blacks. [6] Rent vouchers and other forms of remittances have been proposed as a way of desegregating America. [7]

History

In the findings of a study conducted by Brandeis University, one of the major factors of the huge racial wealth gap in America is due to the disparities in home-ownership in America. [8] It will be very difficult to pinpoint the beginning of housing discrimination in America, since most forms of discrimination in America overlapped. But an extension of Jim Crow laws was made manifest in home-ownership and American housing public policies. These discriminatory federal and state policies, in conjunction with private sector fear for economic loss, led to the systemic exclusion of minorities from loans, access to credit, and higher income. This practice is called redlining.

Philadelphia redlining map Home Owners' Loan Corporation Philadelphia redlining map.jpg
Philadelphia redlining map

Redlining

In 1933, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), a federal government sponsored program was created as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal to combat the Great Depression and to help assist homeowners who were in default on their mortgage and in foreclosure. This assistance was mostly in forms of loans and federal aids that last for over 25 years. [9] President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Housing Act of 1934 (NHA) which established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). [10] [ page needed] [11] This federal policy heightened the worsening of minority inner-city neighborhoods caused by the withholding of mortgage capital, and made it even more difficult for neighborhoods to attract and retain families able to purchase homes. [12] [ page needed] The assumptions in redlining resulted in a large increase in residential racial segregation and urban decay in the United States. [13]

The HOLC under the NHA and in cooperation with the FHA and the Federal Banking Home Loan Board sent surveyors and examiners to go to these cities and speak with local banks, city officials, to determine the lending risks in different neighborhoods. Factors for determining high-risk sectors included: Geography—where is the city located? How close is the city to a park? Does it have commercial establishments? Is it close to a factory, and will pollution be a problem? How old are the apartments or houses? Are they accessible? Are there good roads, good schools, good companies, and opportunities to work? The population, the demographics, is it a majority-minority neighborhood? Are the people mostly poor and uneducated? All of these factors play into determining whether a city is a highly desirable location for the FHA loans or a High-risk or "hazardous" zone. Color-coded maps were used to distinguish different localities based on the findings from these surveys. Green represented the best possible location to give loans. Blue represented a highly desirable locale. Yellow acknowledged a declining and depreciating area. Red identified a “Hazardous” zone. This is what was called the "Residential Security" map. Areas that were coded as red zones had to pay higher interest rates and struggled to access FHA loans. [14]

Red Zone Table [15]
CITYHAZARDOUS
Macon, GA64.99%
Augusta, GA58.70%
Flint, MI54.19%
Springfield, MO60.19%
Montgomery, AL53.11%

The majority of the people who lived in the red zones were blacks and other minorities. Poverty in the black community increased significantly due to a lack of jobs and assistance from the government. Access to credit was based on collateral and geographic residence of applicants which automatically disqualified most blacks and most minorities since they were concentrated in deteriorated areas. Many middle class blacks sought to migrate to the industrial Midwest and Northeast and other places for better opportunities and to leave the red zoned areas, but explicit racial exclusion ordinances prevented blacks from finding places outside of the red zones. [16]

Even in areas where exclusion laws were not in effect, real estate professionals instilled fear that blacks would invade white communities and eventually turn it into a red zone. [1] This led to the "white flight" – the exodus of whites out of the inner city into the suburbs – and blockbusting in the 1960s and 70s. Minorities continued to migrate into the red zoned communities, as it was difficult for them to afford to live elsewhere. [17] The higher taxes and pricing on homes and rentals in the red zones led to constant depreciation in these neighborhoods.

In addition to encouraging white families to move to suburbs by providing them loans to do so, the government uprooted many established African American communities by building elevated highways through their neighborhoods. To build a highway, tens of thousands of single-family homes were destroyed. Because these properties had been summarily declared to be "in decline," families were given pittances for their properties, and were forced into federal housing called the projects. To build these projects, still more single family homes were demolished. [18]

De facto segregation

Although Congress has passed several legislations to end de jure segregation in America, de facto segregation still persists in American schools and cities. People have the right to live in communities of their choice, and due to cultural, economic, social, and personal reasons, self-segregation continues to prevail in America.

The desire of some whites to avoid having their children attend integrated schools has been a factor in white flight to the suburbs, [19] and in the foundation of numerous segregated private schools which most African-American students, though technically permitted to attend, are unable to afford. [20] Recent studies in San Francisco showed that groups of homeowners tended to self-segregate to be with people of the same education level and race. By 1990, the legal barriers enforcing segregation had been mostly replaced by indirect factors, including the phenomenon where whites pay more than blacks to live in predominantly white areas. The residential and social segregation of whites from blacks in the United States creates a socialization process that limits whites' chances for developing meaningful relationships with blacks and other minorities. The segregation experienced by whites from blacks fosters segregated lifestyles and leads them to develop positive views about themselves and negative views about blacks. [21]

Impact of Supreme Court cases

The Fourteenth Amendment 14th Amendment Senate & House votes June, 1866.jpg
The Fourteenth Amendment

Buchanan v. Warley

In Buchanan v. Warley , the Supreme Court of The United States sought to overturn a city ordinance that restricted housing rights. The city ordinance in question prevented blacks from buying in an area where more whites lived and whites from buying in an area where more blacks lived. As a result, year by year, the segregation of racial minorities would become more pronounced as time and restricted purchasing options funneled them into areas outside of white-dominated areas. The Supreme Court ruled by unanimous decision that the ordinance from the city of Louisville, Kentucky violated the freedom of contract guaranteed under the 14th amendment. Cities could not enact racially restrictive covenants. [22]

Corrigan v. Buckley

Corrigan v. Buckley did not directly affect the Buchanan v. Warley ruling on city ordinances, but rather it allowed neighborhoods to enact racially discriminatory covenants. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that neighborhoods could enact racially discriminatory covenants, and that the state could enforce them. Due to the agreements being private contracts, the Court ruled that it could not be regulated by the government. As a result of this case, racially discriminatory covenants spread across the United States and led to more segregated housing. [23]

Hansberry v. Lee

In Hansberry v. Lee , the Supreme Court ruled that due to many of the affected parties not being represented in a previous case on racially exclusive covenants in a neighborhood of Chicago the case could be contested once again. This has become a landmark case for res judicata, and this opened the door to the case of Shelley v. Kraemer . [24]

Shelley v. Kraemer

Shelley v. Kraemer was a landmark case in housing rights in America. Contrary to the Supreme Court of Missouri's decision, which ruled that racial exclusionary covenants were private contracts, the Supreme Court ruled that racially exclusionary covenants violated the equal protection clause of the constitution. This decision was 6–0 due to 3 judges recusing themselves because they lived in neighborhoods with racially exclusionary covenants. [25]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial segregation</span> Systemic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life

Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the 2002 Rome Declaration of Statute of the International Criminal Court. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home Owners' Loan Corporation</span> United States government-sponsored corporation

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a government-sponsored corporation created as part of the New Deal. The corporation was established in 1933 by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation Act under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its purpose was to refinance home mortgages currently in default to prevent foreclosure, as well as to expand home buying opportunities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Housing Administration</span> U.S. government agency responsible for mortgage insurance

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), also known as the Office of Housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is a United States government agency founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, established in part by the National Housing Act of 1934. Its primary function is to provide insurance for mortgages originated by private lenders for various types of properties, including single-family homes, multifamily rental properties, hospitals, and residential care facilities. FHA mortgage insurance serves to safeguard these private lenders from financial losses. In the event that a property owner defaults on their mortgage, FHA steps in to compensate the lender for the outstanding principal balance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redlining</span> Systemic denial of services to some areas

Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which services are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investment; these neighborhoods have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income residents. While the best-known examples involve denial of credit and insurance, also sometimes attributed to redlining in many instances are denial of healthcare and the development of food deserts in minority neighborhoods. In the case of retail businesses like supermarkets, the purposeful construction of stores impractically far away from targeted residents results in a redlining effect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghetto</span> Neighborhood inhabited by a minority group

A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of such restricted areas have been found across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.

Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, were all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practiced a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came into use because of signs that directed "colored people" to leave town by sundown.

Blockbusting is a business practice in the United States in which real estate agents and building developers convinced white residents in a particular area to sell their property at below-market prices. This was achieved by fearmongering the homeowners, telling them that racial minorities would soon be moving into their neighborhoods. The blockbusters would then sell those same houses at inflated prices to black families seeking upward mobility. Blockbusting became prominent after post-World War II bans on explicitly segregationist real estate practices. By the 1980s it had mostly disappeared in the United States after changes to the law and real estate market.

Racial steering refers to the practice in which real estate brokers guide prospective home buyers towards or away from certain neighborhoods based on their race. The term is used in the context of de facto residential segregation in the United States, and is often divided into two broad classes of conduct:

  1. Advising customers to purchase homes in particular neighborhoods on the basis of race.
  2. Failing, on the basis of race, to show, or to inform buyers of homes that meet their specifications.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial segregation in the United States</span>

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Homer Hoyt was an American economist known for his pioneering work in land use planning, zoning, and real estate economics. He conducted notable research on land economics and developed an influential approach to the analysis of neighborhoods and housing markets. His sector model of land use was influential in urban planning for several decades. His legacy is controversial today, due to his prominent role in the development and justification of racially segregated housing policy and redlining in American cities.

Mortgage discrimination or mortgage lending discrimination is the practice of banks, governments or other lending institutions denying loans to one or more groups of people primarily on the basis of race, ethnic origin, sex or religion.

African-American neighborhoods or black neighborhoods are types of ethnic enclaves found in many cities in the United States. Generally, an African American neighborhood is one where the majority of the people who live there are African American. Some of the earliest African-American neighborhoods were in New Orleans, Mobile, Atlanta, and other cities throughout the American South, as well as in New York City. In 1830, there were 14,000 "Free negroes" living in New York City.

Residential segregation is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level". While it has traditionally been associated with racial segregation, it generally refers to the separation of populations based on some criteria.

In the United States, housing segregation is the practice of denying African Americans and other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Housing policy in the United States has influenced housing segregation trends throughout history. Key legislation include the National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the Fair Housing Act. Factors such as socioeconomic status, spatial assimilation, and immigration contribute to perpetuating housing segregation. The effects of housing segregation include relocation, unequal living standards, and poverty. However, there have been initiatives to combat housing segregation, such as the Section 8 housing program.

Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery in 1865, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government didn't begin to take action against these laws until 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting blacks from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

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Corrigan v. Buckley, 271 U.S. 323 (1926), was a US Supreme Court case in 1926 that ruled that the racially-restrictive covenant of multiple residents on S Street NW, between 18th Street and New Hampshire Avenue, in Washington, DC, was a legally-binding document that made the selling of a house to a black family a void contract. This ruling set the precedent upholding racially restrictive covenants in Washington; soon after this ruling, racially restrictive covenants flourished around the nation. Subsequently, in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) the court reconsidered such covenants and found that racially restrictive covenants are unenforceable.

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Rothstein, Richard (2018). The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America . New York, London: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2018. ©2017. ISBN   9781631494536. OCLC   1032305326.
  2. ↑ Hartmann, Douglas; Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi (January 2002). "American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto". Contemporary Sociology. 31 (1): 11. doi:10.2307/3089389. ISSN   0094-3061. JSTOR   3089389. S2CID   147680730.
  3. ↑ Skolnick, Jerome (Winter 1992). "Gangs in the Post-Industrial Ghetto". The American Prospect. ISSN   1049-7285 . Retrieved 2019-03-11.
  4. ↑ Bell, Jeannine (2013). Hate thy neighbor : move-in violence and the persistence of racial segregation in American housing. New York: New York University Press. ISBN   9780814760222. OCLC   843880783.
  5. ↑ Thrasher, Frederic Milton (2013-03-27). The gang : a study of 1,313 gangs in Chicago. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   9780226799308. OCLC   798809909.
  6. ↑ Cutler, David; Glaeser, Edward; Vigdor, Jacob (January 1997). "The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto". Cambridge, MA. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.587.8018 . doi:10.3386/w5881.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ↑ Fiss, Owen M. (2003). A way out : America's ghettos and the legacy of racism. Cohen, Joshua, 1951–, Decker, Jefferson., Rogers, Joel, 1952–. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN   9781400825516. OCLC   436057779.
  8. ↑ "Racial wealth gap continues to grow between black and white families, regardless of college attainment". heller.brandeis.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-10.
  9. ↑ Mitchell, Bruce; Franco, Juan (2018-03-20). "HOLC "redlining" maps: The persistent structure of segregation and economic inequality". NCRC. Retrieved 2019-03-11.
  10. ↑ Jackson, Kenneth T. (1985), Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States , New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN   0-19-504983-7 [ verification needed ]
  11. ↑ Madrigal, Alexis C. (2014-05-22). "The Racist Housing Policy That Made Your Neighborhood". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-11-10.[ verification needed ]
  12. ↑ When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor By William Julius Wilson. 1996. ISBN   0-679-72417-6 [ verification needed ]
  13. ↑ Rachel G Bratt; Chester Hartman; Michael E Stone, eds. (2006). A right to housing : foundation for a new social agenda. Temple University Press. ISBN   1592134327. OCLC   799498026.
  14. ↑ "Map of the Month: Redlining Louisville". Data-Smart City Solutions. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  15. ↑ Meisenhelter, Jesse (2018-03-27). "How 1930s discrimination shaped inequality in today's cities". NCRC. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  16. ↑ Hirsch, Arnold R. (1998). Making the Second Ghetto. University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226342467.001.0001. ISBN   9780226342443.
  17. ↑ Yarmolinsky, Adam; Liebman, Lance; Schelling, Corinne Saposs, eds. (1981). Race and schooling in the city. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN   0674745779. OCLC   6626482.
  18. ↑ "When a City Turns White, What Happens to Its Black History? | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  19. ↑ "Segregation in the United States – MSN Encarta". 2007-04-30. Archived from the original on 2007-04-30. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  20. ↑ Rabby, Glenda Alice (1999). The pain and the promise : the struggle for civil rights in Tallahassee, Florida. Athens. ISBN   082032051X. OCLC   39860115.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  21. ↑ Cutler, David; Glaeser, Edward; Vigdor, Jacob (January 1997). "The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto". Journal of Political Economy. 107 (3): 455–506. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.587.8018 . doi:10.1086/250069. JSTOR   250069. S2CID   134413201.
  22. ↑ Barrera, Leticia (2013-10-28). "Performing the Court: Public Hearings and the Politics of Judicial Transparency in Argentina". PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. 36 (2): 326–340. doi:10.1111/plar.12032. ISSN   1081-6976.
  23. ↑ Asch, Chris Myers (2018). Chocolate City : a history of race and democracy in the nation's capital. UNC Press Books. ISBN   9781469635873. OCLC   1038178017.
  24. ↑ Bourguignon, Henry J.; Allen, Cameron (1986). "A Guide to New Jersey Legal Bibliography and Legal History". Law and History Review. 4 (2): 469. doi:10.2307/743837. ISSN   0738-2480. JSTOR   743837. S2CID   144752412.
  25. ↑ Gilmore, Brian (2013), "Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)", Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, SAGE Publications, Inc., doi:10.4135/9781452276274.n788, ISBN   9781452216836

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