Suburbanization and Race: A Development Issue

Alyssa Monturi

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Suburbanization

“The process of suburbanization resulted in the abandonment of

many inner cities across the country which led to racial segregation and

heighten class divisiveness.”

Ron Goodwin

http://racism-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/

suburbanization_and_the_american_dream

What is Suburbanization?

• Suburbanization can be generally understood through two phenomena

1. “Pull” of new suburbs

2.“Push” from the inner cities.

http://racism-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/suburbanization_and_the_american_dream

Gentrification• Highly controversial process in which urban developers

convert lower income neighborhoods and inner-city ghettos into more upscale communities with condominiums, loft apartments and wealthier tenants for renovated homes.

• Current residents often cannot afford to pay the higher rents or assume a mortgage, gentrification efforts usually force them into even lower class areas with even higher crime rates.

• Local businesses, which formerly catered to the needs of working-class residents may either have to relocate, close or sell out to new investors.

• Gentrification does achieve its stated goal of renovation and renewal, but it can also create an entirely new set of social and economic problems for poor, inner city residents who have been displaced, and/or marginalized

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-gentrification.htmWritten by Michael Pollick; Last Modified June 04, 2010http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1104493

White Flight

• A term used to describe the trend of whites fleeing urban communities to the suburbs as minority populations increase.

• Scholars debate yet often agree that racism plays a large role in this trend

• According to Leah Platt Boustan, Since many public goods are locally financed, segregation between the inner city and the suburbs generates disparities in access to education and other public services.

• For Further Reading on Apartheid Schooling: Jonathon Kozol: The Shame of the Nation

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?csi=258971&sr=headline%28Was+Postwar+Suburbanization+%22White+Flight%22%3F+Evidence+from+the+Black+Migration%29+and+date+is+February+01%2C+2010

Redlining

Redlining: A discriminatory and illegal practice in which financial institutions deny mortgages and other

types of financing to residents of predominantly poor or minority neighborhoods, without regard to individual

creditworthiness.

Criticism for the Necessity of Redlining: Integrated neighborhoods are a financial risk, as they are

likely to be unstable economically and sociallyhttp://www.housingvirginia.org/T1.aspx?PID=80

Black on the Block:The Politics of Race and Class in the City

“The balance of power in neighborhood decision making favors home owners. Their values and

norms about appropriate neighborhood decorum are most audibly expressed, and they frequently

invoke their status as taxpayers to legitimate their demands for action. Home-owning

newcomers and their old-timer allies translate their economic power into political voice.”

Mary Pattillo, Professor of Sociology

and African American Studies at Northwestern University

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/649313.html

Yet Another Injusice…

“The housing market tends to sort the population by income into different areas. Racism may add another type of sorting. If an area is increasingly filled by lower income residents, landlords

have an incentive to not maintain their properties. If they were to invest in upgrades, they'd need to charge a higher rent to make

this a profitable investment. People with higher incomes who could pay the higher rents may not be willing to live in that

neighborhood. So landlords simply "milk" the decaying buildings of their rent. By putting off repairs, they can save money to buy

other buildings elsewhere. The failure to continually upgrade buildings and replace the wornout building stock with new

buildings amounts to a process of disinvestment — shrinkage of capital — in an area.

Tom Wetzel, “What is Gentrification”

http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/gentry.htm

Midland Park, New Jersey Racial Demographics

New Jersey Racial Demographics Midland Park Bergen County

White persons 95.81% 77.80%

Black persons 0.43% 6.10%

American Indian and Alaska Native persons 0.06% 0.30%

Asian persons 2.22% 14.30%

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 0.01% 0.10%

Persons reporting two or more races 0.71% 1.30%

Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin 3.69% 15.10%

White persons not Hispanic N/G 64.10%

White persons

Black persons

American Indian and AlaskaNative persons

Asian persons

Native Hawaiian and OtherPacific Islander

Persons reporting two ormore races

Persons of Hispanic or Latinoorigin

Source: Wikipedia.Org (Other References Listed)U.S. Census Bureau 2000

Midland Park Demographics

White persons

Black persons

American Indian andAlaska Native persons

Asian persons

Native Hawaiian and OtherPacific Islander

Persons reporting two ormore races

Persons of Hispanic orLatino origin

White persons notHispanic

Bergen County Demographics

A Call for Change

YouTube Video

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EblTZ6ufYNY