Tag Archives: race

More on “Obama wants to reengineer your neighborhood”

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Commenting on HUD’s plans to introduce more poorer residents into wealthier communities, a conservative argues this is an assault on the ability to sort by social class:

This is not about blocking housing discrimination, which has been illegal since 1968. It is unlawful for someone to deny you a loan or prevent you from buying a home because of your race, creed or color. Socioeconomic status is — and ought to be — another matter. If you want to buy a nice house in the suburbs, you have to be able to afford it. Apparently, Obama thinks that’s unfair discrimination by the “holders of capital.”

Putting decisions about how local communities are run in the hands of federal bureaucrats is an assault on freedom. Local autonomy is essential to liberty. As Milton Friedman put it in “Capitalism and Freedom,” “If I don’t like what my local community does, be it in sewage disposal, zoning or schools, I can move to another local community. .?.?. If I don’t like what my state does, I can move to another. If I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations.” Washington has no business imposing decisions about zoning and housing policies on thousands of local communities…

Having Washington micromanage the housing and zoning policies of thousands of local communities is not going to change this. The answer is not to force local governments to build affordable housing in affluent communities. The answer is to restore upward mobility in the United States so that more people can afford housing in affluent communities.

Free markets can solve residential segregation, right? Except this simply hasn’t worked over time in the United States. The end of the argument in this article suggests the Obama administration has not been good for poorer Americans. This may be the case but there aren’t many (or any?) magic free trade eras in American history where people of different races and backgrounds could move wherever they wanted even when in the same social class. For example, research in recent years continues to suggests that blacks and Latinos who have the same or similar socioeconomic status as whites tend to live in poorer neighborhoods. Urban renewal – when the government forces residents out of poorer neighborhoods for newer development projects usually benefiting wealthier people – may not work but neither would a completely unfettered market.

Additionally, race and ethnicity are intimately tied to social class in the United States. To suggest that we can easily not discriminate by race but social class is something different ignores the realities of how these key life factors have worked together for hundreds of years.

The “Black Tax”: higher property taxes for black homeowners in order to eventually seize homes

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A new study looks at a practice common in Chicago and other cities where raised property taxes for black residents helped others take their homes:

Kahrl’s case study, which was released this month by the Journal of Urban History, traces the practice of tax-lien speculation to a 1951 reform in Illinois state law called the Revenue Act. During the same years when “redlining” emerged as a severely racially discriminatory mortgage practice, assessors in cities such as Chicago systemically over-valued homes in black neighborhoods for property-tax purposes…

Tax-lien speculation proved to be one hell of a business. Over the course of six months in 1973, for example, Gray acquired the deeds to 93 homes in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood for a total of $70,000. Each parcel was worth as much as $20,000 at the time—and potentially much, much more to speculators once all the neighborhood’s black residents had been evicted…

Not every tax-lien sale resulted in a transfer of deed, but they always resulted in a transfer of wealth. Many homeowners managed to pay off their liens at high interest rates—often 18 percent, the legal ceiling—along with a host of fees. Making real money depended on finding the poorest and most vulnerable owners in the poorest but most over-assessed neighborhoods. This practice was perfectly legal. The “Black Tax” was law…

The remarkably resilient predatory-tax-lien business continues to thrive, despite efforts at reform. The industry is enormous. Late in 2014, the Abell Foundation published a report on the state of the practice in Baltimore City. In 2013, the city sold tax liens for more than 2,000 owner-occupied homes. Almost one-tenth of these liens were attached to water bills. In 2014, of some 6,690 tax liens sold, 2,236 were for owner-occupied homes.

Given the interest, fees, and court costs, a homeowner’s $500 delinquent tax or water bill can mushroom to $3,000 over a two-year window—the time an owner has to pay down the lien. According to the report, there were 2,805 pending tax-lien foreclosure cases in Baltimore City in 2014. Noting the difficulty in tracking these tax-foreclosure evictions, the Abell Foundation report’s authors warn that in Baltimore, the “tax sale can lead to evictions, homelessness, and property vacancies and abandonment in a city already plagued by all three.”

More inequality via race and property in the United States. As if residential segregation wasn’t enough – ongoing lending practices and tax policies continue to make it difficult for blacks and other poor residents to build wealth over time.

Megyn Kelley suggests HUD wants to diversify McMansion neighborhoods

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In commentary over new HUD plans to switch to subsidies by zip code rather than by what renters can pay,

KELLY: This is being described as something that President Obama has had in the works for years, but has only now found the guts to actually put out there as a Housing and Urban Development proposed final rule because his term is almost done and this is the time to do it. The last thing on the list? Change the neighborhoods.

(….)

KELLY: They don’t want, quote, “unequal neighborhoods.” Unequal neighborhoods. It – they think too many cities are too white, too privileged with too big McMansions, too big McMansions and they – they want to diverse the communities whether the communities want it or not…

If I had to guess, McMansions owners are probably disproportionately white. Perhaps these are the same people who are “proud Americans“!

Then Kelly provides the typical hard-work narrative to explain her own ability to live in a nice neighborhood:

KELLY: I mean, I didn’t grow up in a fancy neighborhood. I wanted to be in one, but we couldn’t afford it and you know, then getting to an adult, I made more money and now I live in a nice neighborhood. It’s alright. It’s a nice home. The neighborhood – anyway. The point is, that’s the way it was usually done. It’s not like, you must diversify because Uncle Sam feels it’s too white or it’s too rich.

Yet, leaving it simply to hard work and market forces leaves us where we are today and where we have been for decades: ongoing residential segregation. Vouchers by zip code rather than by price point could help poorer families access the places that have the good schools and other features that can help them get ahead.

I imagine this will draw more pushback as one of the themes running through whiter and wealthier communities is exclusivity.

Reflecting on McKinney, TX as Money’s Best Place to Live

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Following the pool incident McKinney, Texas, one former resident thinks through how the event matches Money‘s claim that it is the Best Place to Live in the United States:

Before this month, the last time McKinney made major news was in the fall, when it was named the best place to live in America by Money magazine. It’s among the fastest-growing cities in the country, and lately big companies have infused the region with thousands of jobs in fields such as energy and aviation. Starting this year, Money wrote, every high-school freshman in McKinney would be issued a Macbook Air to aid in his or her studies.

“Underlying McKinney’s homey Southern charm is a thoroughly modern city,” the Money story gushed…

But the events of recent weeks suggest that even as McKinney has boomed and prospered, some of the more repressive aspects of small-town thinking persist. Perhaps now that so many have come to McKinney to claim what they feel is theirs—a better job, a bigger house, a more private swimming pool—people feel more entitled than ever to push away anyone unlike themselves. Perhaps some cops believe they have an even bigger mandate to crack down on those who pester the well-heeled. Adults at the pool were reportedly telling the black children to “go back to Section 8” housing, and in the aftermath of the incident, local homeowners defended the police. “I feel absolutely horrible for the police and what’s going on… they were completely outnumbered and they were just doing the right thing when these kids were fleeing and using profanity and threatening security guards,” one anonymous woman told Fox 4 in Dallas…

McKinney, more modern than ever, isn’t always recognizable as its former, sleepy southern self. (The Money article speaks of its art galleries, boutiques, and, oddly, shoe-repair shops.) But becoming a “thoroughly modern city” doesn’t just mean a job at Raytheon and access to craft beer. It implies compromise and integration. It requires an understanding of the fact that, in order for a newly rich town to keep growing, it needs a diverse environment in which every person feels at home. When McKinney tops the rankings as the best place to live, it’s worth considering for whom, exactly, that’s actually true.

A few thoughts:

1. Even the best places to live have ugly incidents. This reminds me of Naperville, Illinois which was ranked several times in the top 5 places to live by Money but which has some high profile crimes in recent years. Granted, the crimes were rare. But, Naperville has also dropped to #33 in the rankings.

2. Rapid population growth always comes with adjustments to the character of a community, particularly for suburbs. As late as 1990, McKinney had a population of just over 21,000. There will be rifts between old-timers and new-comers, people who remember when they could know everyone and those who are used to anonymity, those who resent new developments and others who like the new housing options. New populations will arrive – McKinney is over 10% black and over 18% Latino. The suburb will wonder how they can have a single community – and maybe this isn’t possible any longer.

3. Quality of life issues are huge in suburbs. Protecting private property through homeowners associations (and their private pools and security guards) and expensive housing (often leading to separate parts of town based on housing values) is common. Of course, there are places within suburbs where people across these divides do come together. But, the emphasis is often on private lives and avoiding open conflict with other suburban residents.

What is a suburb selling if it is “home to proud Americans”? Whiteness

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New Lenox, Illinois is running radio ads extolling its virtues. They include: a growing population, new retail facilities, and opportunities for business. The final selling point? It is “home to proud Americans.” What exactly does this piece of boosterism mean?

If I was guessing, I would say that this is a largely white, working-class to middle-class community. Using this hint to patriotism hints at hard working, long established families. Perhaps the residents of New Lenox are similar to the counties largely in the South where the largest number of residents claim American ancestry. This doesn’t mean people of other backgrounds can’t be “proud Americans” but they may not phrase it that way or lead with it as a key selling point.

Here are the Census QuickFacts for New Lenox: 96.2% white, 5.7% Latino, 3.5% foreign born, 35.5% have a bachelor’s degree, 2.9% poverty rate, and a median household income of $93,609. New Lenox is largely white and wealthy (though not necessarily educated – the bachelor’s degree rate is only a few percentage points higher than the national average).

This is an example of patriotism as racially coded language. The ad may suggest that New Lenox welcomes “proud Americans” but this is not just about love of country; it is about a particular kind of resident.

How to get wealthier communities to accept affordable housing

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This article discusses two tools to promote affordable housing in wealthier communities: regulations and lawsuits.

But Massachusetts has a work-around: A state statute, called 40B, allows developers to get around exclusionary zoning and build affordable housing in communities where only a small percentage of units are considered affordable. (A few other states have similar policies.) The statute, passed in 1969 and upheld by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court in 1973, has led to the construction of 1,300 developments throughout the state, containing a total of 34,000 units of affordable housing, according to Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, or CHAPA.Projects built under 40B are almost always controversial: The statute was enacted in the first place because most communities outside of big cities didn’t permit multi-family housing, said Ann Verrilli, the director of research at CHAPA. Even with the statute, communities often spend millions of dollars in legal fees to try and stop the projects, Verrilli told me…

The experience of developers trying to build affordable housing in Massachusetts takes on added significance now, as housing advocates wait for a decision on a landmark case in front of the Supreme Court that concerns where low-income housing projects are placed. The case, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, arose when a nonprofit housing group sued Texas, arguing that the state primarily distributed tax credits for low-income housing projects in minority-dominated areas. Inclusive Communities argued that doing so perpetuated segregation and violated the Fair Housing Act, which was passed in 1968 to prevent landlords, municipalities, banks and other housing providers from discriminating on the basis of race. The Supreme Court case centers on whether this discrimination has to be intentional in order to be illegal, or whether the Fair Housing Act also seeks to prevent policies that may not be intentionally discriminatory, but that have a “disparate impact” on minorities…

Many affordable housing units in the suburbs are a direct result of court cases, and even enforcement of those programs are lax. In 2009, Westchester County in New York signed a desegregation agreement and agreed to build and market hundreds of apartments for moderate-income minorities after a court found it had misled HUD by applying for funds that it said it would use to integrate housing, and then did the opposite. Four years later, the county had not complied with the provisions.

The shift from discriminatory race-based housing policies to economic ones in the 1960s and 1970s was an important one. I suggest reading David Freund’s Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America. This is the logic still used today: better off residents argue that they worked hard to get to their higher quality of life and that others should have to do the same. But, since race/ethnicity and social class are inextricably linked, keeping out the lower classes through big lots, expensive properties, a lack of apartments, and other methods leads perpetuates residential segregation.

Two other relevant points from this article. First, affordable housing in the suburbs can be done well through good design and not high levels of concentration. Second, given the resistance to such projects as well as design guidelines that are helpful, still nowhere near enough affordable housing has been constructed. In one sense, the foot draggers of wealthy communities are winning because they have slowed down a process started by the courts in the late 1960s (the Gautreaux case) and 1970s (the Mount Laurel case). Plus, the wealthy can move easily if their properties are threatened.

White population of Detroit increases 12,000 in recent years

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The tide of white flight out of Detroit has reversed slightly in the last few years:

No other city may be as synonymous as Detroit with white flight, the exodus of whites from large cities that began in the middle of the last century. Detroit went from a thriving hub of industry with a population of 1.8 million in 1950 to a city of roughly 680,000 in 2014 that recently went through the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. In those decades, the city’s population has gone from nearly 84 percent white to a little less than 13 percent white.In the three years after the 2010 U.S. Census, though, Detroit’s white population grew from just under 76,000 residents to more than 88,000, according to a census estimate. The cheap cost of living, opportunities for young entrepreneurs and push by city-based companies to persuade workers to live nearby have made a big difference, experts say…

Blacks appear to be weary of waiting for Detroit to turn things around and have been migrating to nearby suburbs in search of comfort, better schools and lower crime.

The city’s black population was nearly 776,000 in 1990. By 2013 it had dipped to an estimated 554,000.

 

The first paragraph cited above is key: the level of white flight in Detroit was so staggering that even an increase of 12,000 white residents in three years might just be seen as a major success. However, this pace would need to pick up and/or continue for a decade or two before there could be legitimate claims about a rebound. Of course, as the later paragraphs above note, even black residents have left in large numbers in recent decades. Would it be considered a success if the white population continued to grow but the black population continued to leave?

In other words, there is still a lot to be done here before we can qualify the changes as successful for the whole city.

When government policy reinforced and added to residential segregation

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The federal government may today be viewed as a party that wants to end residential segregation (see a recent argument by conservatives) but this was not always the case:

On how the New Deal’s Public Works Administration led to the creation of segregated ghettos

Its policy was that public housing could be used only to house people of the same race as the neighborhood in which it was located, but, in fact, most of the public housing that was built in the early years was built in integrated neighborhoods, which they razed and then built segregated public housing in those neighborhoods. So public housing created racial segregation where none existed before. That was one of the chief policies.

On the Federal Housing Administration’s overtly racist policies in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s

The second policy, which was probably even more effective in segregating metropolitan areas, was the Federal Housing Administration, which financed mass production builders of subdivisions starting in the ’30s and then going on to the ’40s and ’50s in which those mass production builders, places like Levittown [New York] for example, and Nassau County in New York and in every metropolitan area in the country, the Federal Housing Administration gave builders like Levitt concessionary loans through banks because they guaranteed loans at lower interest rates for banks that the developers could use to build these subdivisions on the condition that no homes in those subdivisions be sold to African-Americans.

Both of these policies had long-term effects that helped lead to poor urban neighborhoods and whites moving to the suburbs. The federal government had enforcement power and resources to do things that other parties could not.

But, the federal government wasn’t the only force at work. Take Chicago, for example. Local government units, such as the city or the Chicago Housing Authority, made decisions about segregated public housing projects (a few projects were initially all white while the majority were non-white) and where they were to be located (largely in existing poor areas and as a burden to punish certain aldermen). Realtors weren’t exactly open to showing housing to blacks outside of the Black Belt. Residents tended to react angrily for decades when blacks moved in with little interference from police or local officials; see cases from the late 1910s to the 1951 case in Cicero where white mobs made their voices known. This all happened even until the late 1960s where Martin Luther King Jr. was opposed in fighting for open housing during the summer of 1966 and Wheaton was the first Illinois community with an open housing law (passed July 3, 1967 – as a point of comparison, this was nearly one year before Oak Park in May 1968).

It wasn’t just a tyrannical or misguided federal government that promoted residential segregation or that still continues to promote similar ideas today…

More centers for growing ethnic senior populations in the suburbs

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A more diverse suburban population has contributed to an increase in community centers for ethnic seniors:

Without public transportation to get around or language skills to communicate in their suburban surroundings, many of these seniors — feeling isolated and lost — have turned to adult day care service providers that cater to immigrant communities. The number of such suburban centers with a cultural sensitivity has exploded in the last 10 years, from two in 2005 to 14 today, serving an estimated 3,500 seniors, according to Marta Pereyra, executive director of the Coalition of Limited Speaking Elderly.

Despite the growth, centers can’t keep up with demand. There are still hundreds of senior immigrants in the suburbs left home alone because the day cares cannot accommodate them, the centers’ directors say. And with proposed changes to the state program that distributes Medicaid funding to cover the cost of the care, advocates contend that droves of ethnic adults may soon lose the sense of community that keeps them from becoming a further drain on public dollars in state-funded nursing homes.

“They’re following their adult children and their grandchildren (to the U.S.) and are ending up in the suburban areas, and then they discover that these locations don’t have much in the way of services that are culturally specific,” Pereyra said. “They need to have some access to their peers, their ethnic foods, some kind of meaningful activities.”…

“For seniors in suburbs, they’re just isolated in the home. They feel useless, their self-esteem is hurt, they just feel depressed,” Yang said. “We need to give them some time and space for themselves, and we need to teach them English.”

There will be even more need for such centers as (1) more immigrants move directly to the American suburbs (and the numbers several years ago were around 40%) and (2) the American population ages. As the article notes, the suburbs presents a unique challenge for putting these centers together as they have to range wider to pull in people who are more spread out. As opposed to cultural centers in urban enclaves in the city, people can’t just hop on public transit or walk a few blocks – they need to be rescued from their private homes.

And the next question to ask is: what happens to all of these seniors once they can’t make it to these community centers and instead need more medical care or assistance?

Study suggests Millennials see diversity as “different experiences”

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A recent study looked at how Millennials approach diversity:

Millennials seem to be tilting toward that latter, more easily attainable vision. A recent study from Deloitte and the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, found that when it comes to defining diversity, rather than focusing on demographic features, such as race, or gender, Millennials—those born roughly between 1980 and 2000—are more concerned with hiring those who may have different cognitive viewpoints due to growing up in a different part of the country, or attending a different type of school. Differences in race or gender can play a role in those differing viewpoints, but they may not be singled out as important diversifying characteristics. “Diversity means to me your background based on your previous work experience, where you were born and raised, and any unique factors that contribute to your personality and behavior,” said one Millennial who was surveyed.

This is a departure from what older generations understand diversity to mean. “Millennials frame diversity as a means to a business outcome, which is in stark contrast to older generations that view diversity through the lens of morality (the right thing to do), compliance, and equality,” the study of more than 3,700 individuals spanning different generations, races, and genders found. According to Christie Smith, one of the study’s authors, this generation is already comfortable with the idea of diversity in a traditional sense and they’re looking to expand the definition, which could be a good thing…

Millennials are the most diverse group of young adults the nation has seen. And for some, that may mean that the idea of diversity, at least when it comes to race and ethnicity, feels like a given. Though inequalities that have existed for generations persist, some Millennials might think of them as less of a problem. But research, and current events, would show that may not be the case. “We live in a more diverse world in a superficial sense,” Wingfield says. “When we think about where we live, where we go to school, where we work, that type of diversity hasn’t really happened yet.” That creates a gap between perception and reality she says. “Millennials have this reputation for having adopted this more progressive, forward-thinking viewpoint—at the same time, a lot of the institutions that structure their lives really haven’t changed so much.”

This could turn out to be diversity based on individualism and personal identity as opposed to any large-scale understanding of how different social markers, such as race, class, or gender, contribute to different life chances. And the broader data in the United States continues to suggest that those broader social forces still have a large impact on people’s lives.