From the New York Times editorial board:
Blacks Still Face a Red Line on Housing
It’s a white house surrounded by white picket fences. And it has a red roof to show it’s been redlined.
By The Editorial Board
April 14, 2018
… But African-Americans were essentially shut out of early federal programs that promoted homeownership and financial well-being — including the all-important New Deal mortgage insurance system that generated the mid-20th-century homeownership boom. This missed opportunity to amass wealth that white Americans took for granted is evident to this day in a yawning black-white wealth gap and in worse health, living conditions and educational opportunities for African-Americans.
The Fair Housing Act, which turned 50 years old last week, ended the most egregious forms of discrimination and brought a modest rise in black homeownership.
And then everybody realized that FDR’s redlining had been irrational so black neighborhoods boomed in value as the whole world woke up from their racist miasma and realized how attractive black neighborhoods were.
Oh, wait, that would be gentrification …
But those gains — and the hard-won wealth they represented — were wiped out a decade ago in the Great Recession, which reduced the African-American homeownership rate to levels not seen since housing discrimination was legal in the 1960s.
These losses reflect the persistence of financial racism …
The Urban Institute’s analysis of the black-white homeownership gap in 100 cities across the country shows that none have actually closed the ownership gap. The gap was widest in Northeastern and Midwestern cities — with the widest gaps, listed in order of severity, found in Minneapolis; Albany; Buffalo; New York; Salisbury, Md.; and Bridgeport, Conn. The cities with the smallest gaps were Killeen, Tex.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Charleston, S.C.; Austin; and Augusta, Ga.
It’s almost as if blacks tend to do better in Red states than in Blue states.
