Race, Place and Social Equity

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Race, Place and Social Equity
Presentation to Geography 240 Urban Economic
Geography October 18, 2007
Jason Reece, AICP Senior Researcher
Reece.35_at_osu.edu

• Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race
  Ethnicity
• The Ohio State University

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Todays Discussion

• Introduction
• Race, Place Opportunity
• Understanding the cause and impacts of
  racial/social inequality
• How can we intervene
• Regional equity, cooperation and opportunity
• These principles in action
• Baltimore

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Race, Place Opportunity Understanding the
causes and impacts of racial/social inequality
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Land Use and Inequity

• What is sprawl?
• Uncoordinated, disjointed, low density and
  inefficient development/land use policy
• Sprawl is not natural but a reflection of poor
  and outdated policy
• A disorganized movement of the states investment
  from existing communities to a few select
  communities
• The favored quarter
• A government subsidized/supported redistribution
  of Ohios wealth and resources

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Segregation, Inequity Sprawl

• Sprawl actively works to disconnect marginalized
  communities from opportunity
• Pushing limited resources away from existing
  communities
• Segregating people from opportunity
• Space is how race plays out in American
  society-and the key to solving inequities in
  housing, transportation, education, and health
  careSprawl is the new face of Jim Crow. -- john
  powell
• This is not a natural phenomena or just the free
  market in action, it is a result of policy

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Policies Enforcing InequityHistorical
Government Role

• If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is
  necessary that properties shall continue to be
  occupied by the same social and racial classes.
  A change in social or racial occupancy generally
  contributes to instability and a decline in
  values.
• Excerpt from the 1947 FHA underwriting manual

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Historical Contemporary Racial Dynamics in
Housing

• Public and private practices supported the
  creation and maintenance of segregated
  neighborhoods
• FHA lending restrictions disallowed integrated
  neighborhoods, which restricted equity-building
  in suburbs largely to whites
• Privately maintained racially restrictive
  covenants
• Mid-century Urban Renewal replaced poor
  neighborhoods with commercial development or
  housing for whites poor people of color moved to
  high-density, high-rise public housing utilized
  eminent domain
• Highway building facilitated moves from city to
  suburb and movement between suburbs gas/auto
  subsidies
• New infrastructure prioritized over existing
  repair and updates

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Urban Renewal in Boston
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The Rise of SuburbiaBut not accessible to
everyone
In the suburb-shaping years (1930-1960), less
than one-percent of all African Americans were
able to obtain a mortgage.
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Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis
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Policies Enforcing Inequity Contemporary
Government Role

• The exclusion and segregation produced by sprawl
  is not natural or neutral it results from
  government policies, such as
• Zoning laws prevent affordable housing in many
  growth areas
• Housing policies concentrate subsidized housing
• Municipalities subsidize the relocation of
  businesses out of the city
• Transportation and infrastructure spending
  favoring highways, metropolitan expansion and
  urban sprawl
• Court decisions prevent metropolitan school
  desegregation
• School funding is tied to property taxes
• These factors support racial/social segregation
  and isolation from opportunity

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Why Care About Segregation?

• Because neighborhoods conditions impact our lives
  in significant ways
• Where you live is more important than what you
  live in
• Housing, in particular its location, is the
  primary mechanism for accessing opportunity in
  our society
• Housing location determines the quality of
  schools children attend, the quality of public
  services, access to employment and
  transportation, health risks, access to health
  care and public safety
• For those living in high poverty neighborhoods
  these factors can significantly inhibit life
  outcomes

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The Cumulative Impacts of Racial and Opportunity
Segregation
Segregation impacts a number of life-opportunities
Impacts on Health
School Segregation
Impacts on Educational Achievement
Exposure to crime arrest
Transportation limitations and other inequitable
public services
Job segregation
Neighborhood Segregation
Racial stigma, other psychological impacts
Impacts on community power and individual assets
Adapted from figure by Barbara Reskin at
http//faculty.washington.edu/reskin/
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Who Lives in High Poverty Neighborhoods?

• Over 3.1 million African Americans lived in High
  Poverty Neighborhoods in 2000
• Whites only make 30 of people living in high
  poverty neighborhoods, although they represent
  55 of the total population living in poverty

Source Stunning Progress, Hidden Problems The
Dramatic Decline of Concentrated Poverty in the
1990s. The Brookings Institute (2003)
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Segregation from Opportunity Neighborhood Poverty

• In all three of Ohios largest metropolitan
  areas, African Americans live in neighborhoods
  with 2 to 3 times the poverty rate experienced in
  White Neighborhoods
• In the City of Cleveland, 1/3 of African
  Americans live in concentrated poverty
  (neighborhoods with more than a 40 poverty rate)

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Housing location determines access to schools.
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jobs
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neighborhood amenities
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How Does Sprawl and Segregation Impact
Marginalized Populations?

• Sprawl and segregation cause detrimental impacts
  to urban marginalized communities in multiple
  ways
• Education
• Disinvestment neighborhood quality
• Economic opportunity
• Housing opportunity
• Producing opportunity deprived neighborhoods

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Sprawl, Inequity Education
Produces Dysfunctional Schools
Sprawl
Segregation
50 years after the Brown Decision, Americas
schools have re-segregated into affluent white
districts and poor under-funded African American
and Hispanic districts
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Economic Segregation and Racial Segregation in
Public Schools Cleveland and Akron High Poverty
Schools (Red and Yellow) are Concentrated in
African American Neighborhoods (Areas in Gray)
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Cycle of School Segregation
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Sprawl and Disinvestment in Urban Communities

• Decades of suburban flight have drained low
  income inner city neighborhoods of people,
  business and investment
• High vacancy rates and poor investment harms the
  quality of life for inner city residents and
  limits the resources (tax base) for low income
  communities

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Sprawl, Inequity and Economic Opportunity

• Jobs have moved away from the labor pool in many
  metropolitan areas, making connecting job-seekers
  with jobs a challenge (compounded by poor public
  transportation)
• 40 of all suburban jobs cannot be reached by
  public transportation
• Public investment disproportionately favors
  highways over public transportation
• Over half of the African American population is
  physically segregated from employment
  opportunities

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What is the Critical Issue Supporting Continuing
Segregation? Housing
Housing Challenges
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Impacts on Housing Opportunity

• Sprawl, subsidized housing policy and
  exclusionary zoning reduce access to the housing
  market for low income residents (especially
  people of color)
• Suburban zoning regulations artificially drive up
  the cost of housing and do not allow enough
  rental housing
• New housing is unaffordable to low income
  residents and most people of color
• Subsidized housing policy is still concentrating
  most public subsidized affordable housing
• Disinvestment in the inner city reduces the asset
  value (wealth) of homeowners in inner city
  neighborhoods

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Growing Affordability Problems (in Many Markets)

• The nation has a growing affordability problem
• Appreciation in coastal markets and lagging
  incomes in other markets are contributing to this
  trend
• Even for markets like Columbus
• Columbus is now the 3rd least affordable housing
  market in the Midwest

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Exclusionary Land Use Policy
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Racial Steering and Discrimination

• Recent studies by researchers and the federal
  government (HUD) found that racial steering,
  discrimination and exclusion are still prevalent
  in the housing market
• Creating barriers to housing access outside of
  cost impediment
• Orfield and Luce (2005) Iceland, Sharpe and
  Steinmetz (2005) Dawkins (2004) Pendall (2000)
  HUD HDS (2000) Galster (1998) Schill and Wachter
  (1995) Massey, Gross and Shibuya (1994) HUD HDS
  (1989)

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Racial Steering in Detroit
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Inequities Impact Everyone

• How do disparities harm our State?
• Wasted Creative Capacity. The wasted creative
  capacity associated with a lack of social,
  economic and educational opportunity drags down
  the competitive strength of the entire State
• Fragmented Economic Voice. To attract investment
  in the global economy, regions/States must act
  collectively to promote themselves, and they must
  align key infrastructure and assets to be more
  innovative, efficient and competitive
• Disparities also reinforce sprawl and increase
  housing cost for everyone (the segregation tax)

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How can we intervene?Regional equity,
cooperation and access to opportunity
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Principles for Equitable Regionalism

• The success of equitable regionalism rests on the
  following principles
• Create and grow communities of opportunity in
  distressed areas
• Work to reduce the destructive, inefficient
  competition among communities in the State
• Cooperatively manage sprawling development so as
  not to subsidize dysfunctional growth patterns
• Improve the educational outlook for all of the
  States children
• Regionalism does not require regional government
  (municipal consolidation) but requires regional
  foresight and cooperation

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Examples of Smart Growth or Regionalism that
Promote Racial and Regional Equity (1)

• Housing Initiatives
• Inclusionary zoning, opportunity based housing,
  workforce housing
• Growth Control Initiatives
• Growth management (that preserves affordable
  housing in areas of opportunity)
• Tax Sharing Initiatives
• Tax base sharing, income tax strategies
• Public Infrastructure Initiatives
• Reinvestment in existing communities
• Removing subsidies associated with sprawl

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Examples of Smart Growth or Regionalism that
Promote Racial and Regional Equity (2)

• Transportation Initiatives
• Equitable transportation spending, expanding
  public transit investments
• Public Education Initiatives
• Regionalized school districts, economic
  integration, magnet schools, school mobility,
  targeting highly qualified teachers, day long
  year long schooling
• Inner City Redevelopment
• Land bank programs, increasing homeownership,
  minority and small business development,
  leveraging public investments to attract private
  investment, investing in people (work force
  development)

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Putting these principles in actionBaltimore,
Austin Cleveland
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The Communities of Opportunity Approach in Fair
Housing

• Thompson v. HUD
• Lawsuit filed on behalf of 14,000 African
  American public housing residents in the City of
  Baltimore
• Plaintiffs representatives include the Maryland
  ACLU and NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• In January 2005, US District Court Judge Garbis
  found HUD liable for violating the federal Fair
  Housing Act, for not providing fair housing
  opportunities to Baltimores African American
  public housing residents
• The current remedial phase involves designing a
  court ordered remedy to address HUDs fair
  housing violation

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Conditions in Baltimore

• Subsidized housing opportunities in Baltimore are
  generally clustered in the regions predominately
  African American neighborhoods

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Ruling remedy must be regional

• Baltimore City should not be viewed as an island
  reservation for use as a container for all of the
  poor of a contiguous region.
• The Court finds an approach of regionalization
  to be integral to desegregation in the Baltimore
  Regionby the term regionalization the Court
  refers to policies whereby the effects of past
  segregation in Baltimore City public housing may
  be ameliorated by the provision of public housing
  opportunities beyond the boundaries of Baltimore
  City

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Plaintiffs proposed remedy

• The remedy should connect subsidized housing
  residents to communities of opportunity
• The remedy must be sensitive to opportunity
• The remedy must be metropolitan-wide
• The remedy must be race-conscious
• The remedy must not force dispersal of public
  housing residents
• The remedy must be goal-driven
• The remedy should make use of a variety of tools
  available to HUD

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Proposed remedy identifies Communities of
Opportunity

• Used 14 indicators of neighborhood opportunity to
  designate high and low opportunity neighborhoods
  in the region
• Neighborhood Quality/Health
• Poverty, Crime, Vacancy, Property Values,
  Population Trends
• Economic Opportunity
• Proximity to Jobs and Job Changes, Public Transit
• Educational Opportunity
• School Poverty, School Test Scores, Teacher
  Qualifications

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Plaintiffs Proposed Remedy

• Plaintiffs propose providing desegregative
  housing opportunities in the regions high
  opportunity neighborhoods to remedy HUDs fair
  housing violations
• With the goal of providing nearly 7,000
  affordable housing opportunities in high
  opportunity communities to public housing
  residents who volunteer to relocate in ten years
• Aligned with proposals to provide support
  services for residents who volunteer for the
  program

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