Great Boston Globe article on the hole in progressive visions when it comes to affordable housing and racial diversity in neighborhoods

Most people aren't aware of all of the institutional supports that created and maintained segregated neighborhoods, in both cities and suburbs.

Sure, people probably understand segregation.  And might know about the now illegal practice of deed restrictions.

But people don't actually know how the term "redlining" was coined--to qualify for mortgages, neighborhoods had to be segregated and white.

Redlined neighborhoods, marked out on maps for banks and companies originating mortgages, were either black or racially mixed, and didn't qualify for loans.

And this was done by the federal government, as part of New Deal programs aimed to energize the housing market and to improve bank profits.

This practice was extended to the suburbs, and it wasn't until the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 that it was "officially" stopped, although the effects continue to effect housing markets and household wealth dynamics to this day.

I haven't read it yet, but that's the topic of Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (other resources).

Most people aren't conscious that their unwillingness to open their neighborhoods to affordable housing and a wider variety of types of housing--with the aim of increasing racial and income diversity--is out of sorts with their concerns about racism and institutionalized and structural racism in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.

There's a great op-ed, "Housing will test white support for Black lives," in the Boston Globe by Noah Kim, about this disconnect.

Twitter photo by moiety.

The author calls our attention to this photograph of a yard fence in Newton, Massachusetts, with signs for "Black Lives Matter" and two anti-affordable housing initiatives there "Right Size Newton" and "Right Size Riverside."

Although this and other residents see the "Right Size" efforts as focused on maintaining neighborhood character, without any connotations of racism.