Locked In Model

Today we live in a society where it is acceptable for a white and black family to be neighbors, even close friends. This situation has not always been the case. During the 1950’s, the time that the Younger family was living in Chicago, whites and blacks were living completely separate lives and a majority of the blacks were living in poverty. Although there are significant improvements we have made, there are still things that remain the same. Many African Americans in Chicago today are still living in poverty, just like they were over 50 years ago. Two important changes have occurred during these years. Our race relations between whites and blacks have improved tremendously. Today it is completely acceptable for two different colored families to be living next door to each other. The second significant change is not as positive. The homicide rates per 100,000 people have gone up by almost 10 times the amount it was in the 50’s. Many sociologist believe that the cycle of multigenerational poverty causes violence in the mostly black communities, therefore raising the homicide rates. Even though as a city we have improved our race relations there are still problems such as the rising homicide rates and percent of people living in poverty.

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.

Access to resources has been historically constrained in the U.S. on the basis of ethnicity, race and most recently class. This differential access to resources is a result of overt structural forces that create barriers to employment, housing, education and neighborhood investment. The political policy of “redlining” is a great example of how public policy can affect access to resources. This policy selectively avoided giving mortgages to individuals living in predominantly Black

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

Wilson (2011) research proves that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), contributed to the early decay of inner city neighborhoods by withholding mortgage capital and making it difficult for these areas to retain or attract families who were able to purchase their own homes. As the federal government created this program it excluded certain inner city neighborhoods. This exclusion created “redlining” which assessed primarily on racial composition. People who wanted to get out of public housing and purchase a home in a redlined neighborhood were denied proper mortgages, even if they had sufficient funds. Wilson (2011) says that such restrictions such redlining restricted many opportunities for building or even maintaining quality housing in the inner city, which in many ways set the stage for urban blight that many Americans now associate with black neighborhoods. Policies like this one were created to make blacks stay in the inner city

Imagine living in a town that was once thriving with successful businesses to a community that barely exist. As you travel down the deserted roads of your community you are surrounded by boarded up memorable buildings, deteriorating homes, and empty storefronts. The water tower that stands tall for all to see is now covered by rust. While the streets in which you are traveling on show signs of frequent patchwork in an effort to salvage the road. As you pass by what once was your favorite mom and pop’s restaurant you began to reminisce on the time you spent there with loved ones. This has become the story of residents in Boley, Oklahoma; one of the first all black towns in the state.

During the time of the civil rights movement, milwaukee was considered to be one of the most segregated cities at the time. An extensive amount of African American had moved to the city during and after world war II, and by the time of the civil rights movement, the black community had accounted for 15 percent of Milwaukee’s population . It isn’t a surprise that majority of African Americans in Milwaukee lived in the north side of the city, which accumulated increasing volatility due to limited job opportunities, poverty, and segregation.Racial segregation in Milwaukee and around the world has always been a phenomenon with intricate historical roots. The complex history of slavery, employment discrimination, tax inequity, redlining, discriminatory housing policies, and multiple other issue have lead Milwaukee to be segregated. Despite the fact that Milwaukee’s has a unique history, social forces and government policies created and reinforced residential segregation throughout the united states, so why is Milwaukee worse than most cities in America? Well suburban housing is more expensive than city housing and another thing that distinguishes metro Milwaukee from other areas is the incredible racial disparity in median household incomes in metro Milwaukee, which prevents many minorities from being able to afford suburban housing. So segregation is a huge problem in the milwaukee metro area because of the racial disparity in median household incomes, education, and

Recent events that have highlighted racial tension in the United States have had even a larger number of opinions that vary regarding why the nation continues to struggle with such a challenging issue. In our text Chapter 6 titled “The City/Suburban Divide” (Judd & Swanstrom, 2015, p. 136) identifies a subject that very well may contribute to the tension. A reference to the “urban crisis” describes a landscape that is littered with “high levels of segregation, inequality and poverty, along with racial and ethnic tensions.” (Judd, et al., p. 165) Many scholars argue that the crisis was a result of the demographic changes the nation experienced following World War II as advancements in technology and infrastructure aided White Mobility. The term “White Flight” has been used to describe a massive relocation early in the twentieth century when the White Middle-Class population left the cities for suburban areas following the great migration.

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

Segregation and certain policies can also lead to a lack of resources. The segregation that remains in cities today started as a result of a formal practice called Redlining, which started back in 1943 with the National Housing Act. Lower class families of color were not able to receive mortgages to buy into the ‘nicer’ areas, which led a low chance to accumulate wealth, and to receive

One of the reasons they were “trapped” in neighborhoods was redlining. Bradford Hunt’s article reads, “Redlining is the practice of arbitrarily denying or limiting financial services to specific neighborhoods, generally because its residents are people of color or are poor.” The HOLC, Home Owner’s Loan Corporation, “color-coded” maps of the cities show the African American neighborhoods and white neighborhoods. This outline gave the redlined areas the impression of being an investment and insurance risky.

Racial Segregation in Kansas City was one key aspect even among other major American Cities. In the 1880 census, it doesn’t show any evidence of residential segregation but instead shows Blacks living in small residentials that were diverse clusters with other minorities, including whites. When African-Americans were moving into Kansas City in the nineteenth-century, they had specific geographical boundaries with minorities such as Hispanics. Whites had their own geographical boundaries. “Thus, people did not perceive a connection between black ‘culture’ and a particular ‘place’ occupied exclusively by Blacks”(Gotham 2002). Discrimination existed through mandated school, medical segregation and through hiring practices(Garcia 1996 &,Gotham 2002).

Gentrification in Detroit, with whites beginning to move in and occupy areas that have been previously inhabited by blacks is gaining momentum, with a cheerleading media and political elites leading the way with tax breaks for corporations, new residents who are predominately white and economically middle to upper class, and a heavy police presence. All of the above factor are manifestations of a political climate in the United States of Republican led initiatives of austerity programs. Spurred on by the idea of privatization, and the Free Market economic policy of corporations having the freedom to influence and control the resources of Public institutions and politics, further eroding the opportunities for the average person, which is magnified in the Black community with disastrous results. Juxtaposed with the majority of the city, where, blight, unemployment, closing of schools, crime are all remnants of a once great city are evident to anyone that courageously visits these

Segregation proved to be powerful in the city as to this day the South Side still shows remnants of the “Black Belt.” Figure [2] below shows racial demographics of a recent census of Chicago and the resemblance to the map of covenants in figure [1] can clearly be seen. Chicago’s role as a home for it’s residents proved positive for some but problematic for most. A system that always favored the wealthy and white was true for the city and while some areas were strong enough to fight this trend, as a whole Chicago was

The federal government played a role in establishing and maintaining residential segregation in metropolitan areas. For example, Rothstein states that after the New Deal and World War II, federally funded public housing was explicitly and racially segregated (5). The projects were designated for either whites or blacks, later becoming increasingly black. Neighborhoods that were historically segregated still continue today with the very same characteristics – racially and economically homogeneity. Children who grow up in and attend schools in these neighborhoods encounter what Sherman refers to as “youth disconnection”. In essence, youth disconnection is the lack of exposure to important influences that help with human development. Sherman takes into account statistics about disconnected youth which include being twice as likely to live in poverty, three times as likely to leave high school without a diploma, half as likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree, and etc (“How Disadvantages Caused by Residential Segregation End Up Costing Billions”). How can students thrive in environments that are historically segregated and disadvantaged? Access to a better education along with other influences beneficial to development should to be decided based upon the location in which a student