Gatekeepers and Homeseekers: Institutional Patterns in Racial Steering

The racial undertones of Detroit have been extremely problematic to Detroit’s real estate market for well over 50 years. These social disruptions continue to have an effect on the current residents of Detroit. During the middle of the nineteenth century, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) introduced real estate tactics such as redlining, which is the practice of flagging minority dense neighborhoods for the purposes of denying approval of mortgages or inflating the price of the homes. Redlining had a profound social and economic effect on all residents of Detroit. The white majority began abandoning and selling their homes in fear that the value of the home would plummet, leading to a great financial loss when minorities moved in the area. This idea is known as white flight, and is the primary reason that Detroit has one of the highest African American populations in the country. However, through revitalization and gentrification of the Midtown/Downtown area, Detroit is slowly becoming more diverse. Throughout history, racial politics of the mid-to-late twentieth century affected Detroit 's real estate market by excluding minorities from the real estate market. Although adding stadiums, high end retail, small shops, and restaurants is economically valuable to the city of Detroit, this is conflicting and potentially problematic for the original residents of the area because the prices of these new establishments are often much higher than the residents can afford.

Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating

What I learned this week which I found most interesting is the evolving situation of housing segregation in this country. If I would have been asked why our country is still so segregated I would say that this situation is due to the fact that we had Jim Crow laws in effect only 60 years ago and many communities have just not changed that much since then. What I wouldn’t have guessed is the widespread extent to which the races intentionally segregate themselves. Less than 50% of both blacks and whites say they want to live in a community of people who look like them. However when people actually choose their home 74% of whites end up in white communities and 66% of blacks end up living in black communities. (Chang, Alvin) Whether it is basic

While, the housing act was the last major act of the civil rights movement many states still had segregated housing neighborhoods. As years progressed, whites moved from the city to surrounding suburbs leaving

Lipsitz uses practices of the housing market to illustrate how the diverse practices provide the privilege to white people in the current institutional arrangements. The capital resides in suburban houses has proven many white families’ economic mobility, although few white Americans recognize that segregation has historically been the guarantee of suburban real estate values. Housing policy and real estate practices, banking and finance, education, tax codes and subsidies, the behavior of the courts, and the norms of urban policing are all heavily inflected by a racialist logic or tend toward racialized consequences. Lipsitz delineates the weaknesses embedded in civil rights laws, the racial dimensions of economic restructuring and deindustrialization, and the effects of environmental racism, job discrimination and school segregation. Lipsitz describes the centrality of whiteness to American culture, and explains how the whites have used identity politics to forward their collective interests at the expense of racialized groups, including African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos.

Different areas of the private sector took control of the racial segregation. Areas such as real estate, banks, labor, and toxic waste locations have participated in some way to continue the segregation and inferiority of people of color. “African Americans and other communities of color are often victims of land-use decision making that mirrors the power arrangements of the dominant society” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). The land-use decisions are used by the real estate industry. The real estate industry along with the bank industry have worked together in order to make it almost impossible for people of color to acquire their own homes. When individuals of color do obtain their own homes the real estate industry corrals them all into one zone. Then the banks charge homeowners in these zones high interest rates on the mortgages needed to maintain their home ownership. “Zoning is probably the most widely applied mechanism to regulate urban land use in the United States” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). When people of color are corralled into a neighborhood the quality of the neighborhood is diminished. The

In “The Complexities and Processes of Racial Housing discrimination” by Vincent J. Roscigno, Diana L. Karafin, and Griff tester, the main concept of racial disparity and inequality among neighborhoods is discussed, and how those inequalities became to be. They first highlight the wide range of potentially exclusionary practices, through qualitative and quantitative data comprised of over 750 verified housing discrimination cases (Roscigno, p. 162). Citing the U.S. Census, it is found that Blacks, compared to Hispanics and Asians, continue to experience high levels of residential segregation. This is done through discriminatory practices, whether they be by exclusionary or non-exclusionary methods. Even after the passing of the Fair Housing Act in 1988, discrimination against Blacks and Hispanics decreased somewhat, though African Americans still appeared to take part in racial steering, and Hispanics continued to have limitations in regards to opportunities and access to rental units (Roscigno, p. 163).

As he pointed out in the very early part of his article, for instance Clyde Ross, resident of North Lawndale Chicago, was denied when he first tried to get a legitimate mortgage; mortgages were effectively not available to black people (Coates, June 2014). Also, just like what we talked about in class last week, Ross and many other black families were forced to live in those redlined neighborhoods with “contract house.” Basically, Ross had not signed a normal mortgage. He’d bought “on contract”: a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither (Coates, June 2014). This is a perfect example of how these ghetto-neighborhoods were created; it was created by white supremacists and people in the government who chose to ignore “the elephant in the room.” All these black families left with no choice. They ran from the South, thinking that they could finally go the land of the free. They quickly found out that, it was no different in the North, or even the West. They were forced to stuck with the

Following, numbers of shootings involving law enforcement and black men, race became a pertinent topic among American people. It seems that two groups have revealed themselves through these discussions, those who believe race is still a problem in America, and those who believe America is a post-racial society. History is one of the clearest indicators showing that race may still be relevant in modern communities. A plethora of connections can be drawn between discrepancies in poverty, incarceration, and poor education between whites and blacks when you look at events in our nation’s history such as slavery, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, and more. With that being said, one of the more significant examples of institutional racism in America is one that is rarely

The effect of these policies may have afforded an array of opportunities to white Americans, but they had a very different effect on the African American population. The establishment of these policies contributed to a state of unequal and segregated housing among African Americans and whites referred to as the dual housing market. In a dual housing market, the price of any given home was assigned two separate prices depending on the race of the buyer. White families were being given substantially lower prices and more options by realtors for homes than African American families were. Realtors were at the root of this problem, “Chicago’s realtors were thus instrumental in the creation of a dual housing market both locally and nationally- that is, a “white” market of low

For unrestricted areas, the real estate agents made their efforts by blockbusting neighborhoods. Blockbusting, or “panic peddling”, was common throughout the city and would happen if a house in a predominately white area was sold to an African American. Real estate agents in the area would then suggest white homeowners to sell their property and move. This strategy was very successful throughout the city and often led to homeowners selling to agents at reduced prices because the fear of being trapped in a black neighborhood. While the small upside to this event was that more housing became available to African Americans, it mainly further increased the divide between races and led to these neighborhoods that were turned over to become classified as deteriorating

It was a way to constraint African Americans to areas that were far away from those with status, class, and power. Segregation led to discrimination in economic opportunities, housing, and education. The black culture has suffered from the barriers that were placed through segregation. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 tried to limit some of the discrimination associated with segregation. It was discovered that even a “rising economic status had little or no effect on the level of segregation that blacks experience” (Massey and Denton 87). The authors imply that “black segregation would remain a universal high” (Massey and Denton 88). The problem with the continuing causes in Segregation is that even though the Fair Housing act was placed, many realtors still discriminate against blacks “through a series of ruses, lies, and deceptions, makes it hard for them to learn about, inspect, rent, or purchase homes in white neighborhoods” (Massey and Denton 97). Segregation and discrimination have a cumulative effect over time. Massey and Denton argued that the “act of discrimination may be small and subtle, together they have a powerful cumulative effect in lowering the probability of black entry into white neighborhood” (98). William Julius Wilson had

Chinatown, Olvera Street, and Compton all contributed to culturally diversity and the expansion of Los Angeles. Although Los Angeles has become rich in cultures, its evolution did not go without racial tensions and segregation. With the arrival of blacks from the south, white-Los Angeles did always recognize the minority community. Angelenos did not always embrace diversity with pride, but perhaps the sad part is not the fact that racial segregation took place, but the fact that it was not created by just the individual, but also by the organization. Federal programs like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Homeowner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) divided up Los Angeles into a complex socio-economic racial-class system. The influences of the local level influenced the federal level and revolutionized the finance industry. (Avila, lecture 2/5/02) These federal organizations blatantly labeled minorities as derogatory, uneducated, second-class citizens that brought down property value in “white” neighborhoods. Latinos and Black were often labeled as a “minority problem” and even as a “disease” on official HOLC documents. The HOLC implemented strict government guidelines and kept maps of white neighborhoods confidential. It also devised a formal and uniform style of appraising homes by breaking neighborhoods into race classifications by letter. As Waldie states, “The Montana Land Company made it clear that lots were

This inequality in the political system that claims to be the fairest and most democratic in the world is unsettling in itself. However, the other inequalities still seen in US society are even more staggering. In 1968, when the Fair Housing Act put in place federal law to prevent racial discrimination in the buying and selling of houses, it was a stepping stone to a more integrated society. However, in 2005, the Federal Reserve Board conducted a survey that researched 5.3million mortgage applications, in 19 cities, from 9,300 financial institutions. Their conclusion was that African-Americans were 2:1 more likely to be turned down for a mortgage than whites, which is an overwhelming statistic.

appearing only as purveyors of facts chosen by persons whose minds are already made up.” I