February 18, 2023

Hi First name / friend,

 

What do donuts and major U.S. cities have in common? In the mid-20th century, racist real estate practices and housing finance rules from the federal government created “donut hole” segregation patterns, with Black people largely restricted to dense, sometimes blighted urban centers (where they often couldn’t get government-insured mortgages to purchase property and thus lost out on building wealth) and white people free to buy homes in the newly built suburbs.

 

Many of those patterns persist today. But back-to-the-city trends and gentrification have shifted things such that many Black and poor folks don’t have much choice about staying in the neighborhoods where they’ve built community. Folks with socioeconomic and racial privilege have choices, the poor do not.

 

I’m (finally) reading Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, and it’s got me thinking about all of the ways that our system still promotes segregation, still shuts out certain folks. It can happen when folks resist apartment buildings or other plans to boost density, through breed specific legislation that largely targets pit bulls (a breed that often gets associated with Black and Latino people in the US – here’s a great post on the topic), to poor communities and communities of color being targeted by subprime lenders in the lead-up to the 2007 housing crash, and generally through economically segregated neighborhoods.

 

I’m in an intense period of learning right now and it’s at once exciting and overwhelming. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, it’s confusing to question such deeply held beliefs and rebuild anew – I sort of feel like I’m vibrating all the time these days. But I know I’ll be a better planner, a better housing advocate, if I question the ideas at the core of the system that got us to where we are now: expensive, exclusionary, speculative approaches to housing.

 

If The Color of Law has been on your list for a long time (like it was for me), might I suggest the audiobook version. I was able to get ahold of it from the DC Public Library via Libby pretty quickly. I love the way Rothstein uses regionally diverse cases to paint a picture of the extent of de jure segregation – some of his earliest stories are from California, and I think it’s hugely important that we don’t see racial exclusion as some exclusively Southern phenomenon.

 

Until next time,

Dominique

Next Article Club meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 28 from 7-8 p.m. ET! We’ll discuss “America the Bland” from the New York Times (gift link – no subscription needed). This story is about the criticism that all major U.S. cities have started to look the same. I’ve been thinking about this one a lot since I first came across it a few weeks ago.

 

👋🏽 Welcome to The Neighborhood™️, Curbed – Some call this targeted gentrification, some say “please go back to California,” and I say this is just very odd.

 

✊🏽 Your segregated town might finally be in trouble, Vox – When the 1968 Fair Housing Act went into effect, it was supposed to work to dismantle government-sponsored segregation in American communities. That hasn’t happened so much. With a new proposed rule, the Biden admin is trying to finish what Obama started and Trump reversed. I’ll believe it when I see it.

 

😕 No State Has an Adequate Supply of Affordable Rental Housing for the Lowest Income Renters, National Low Income Housing Coalition – Sort of a depressing headline, but this is a cool tool that maps just how far behind some states are from an adequate low-income housing supply. DC is doing better than I thought, and Florida and Texas are in the same (bad) category as California and Oregon.

 

🏘️ Arlington Advances Contentious Housing Proposal To Build More Multifamily Units, DCist – Some good news amid the doom! Arlington County in Virginia is moving forward with a Missing Middle housing plan, which has sparked extreme opposition and support. When it comes to building more housing, I see Missing Middle as a worthwhile experiment (because yes, we need to try new things and it’s hard to get a ton of data to show how these things play out in the long run, all other policy and practical restrictions considered). Excited about this one! (Here's a past newsletter on Missing Middle.)

 

🎥 MOVIE REC: The Big Short. I am extremely late to the party, but I just watched this 2015 gem with Geoff last night and wow! It was a very good telling of the 2007 housing crash, and is actually quite accurate. I’ve spent a lot of my academic life focused on the post-New Deal and mid-century era, but I think this might become my new learning obsession. You can rent this one on Amazon Prime.