I think that people underestimate the generational effects of the FHA loans being locked to suburbanized white neighborhoods. The rise of the automobile combined with the post-war FHA loan restrictions allowed one group of people to 'invest' in their homes and land, while excluding (mostly) another group. Check out https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history... for an overview of 'The Color of Law' mentioned above.
These kinds of regulations are extremely common (I might even go so far as to say they are the norm) in many US suburbs. Such restrictions are intended to prevent single-famiy homes from being used as large group houses. A probably intentional byproduct of the restrictions is also to keep lower-income residents out of desirable neighborhoods (by preventing for example, two families from occupying a large house that neither could afford individually). Minimum lot sizes have a similar consequence. If you're interested in getting into the history of housing restrictions, particularly as they…
When conservatives say that they think the US is too "diverse" for such policies to work, take them at their word. They think that social democracy is fine as long as the benefits don't go to black or brown people. In fact, this was the essence the "grand bargain" that FDR struck to get the New Deal passed with reluctant support from southern Democrats - FDR was allowed to create redistributive programs so long minorities were systematically excluded from them (see Richard Rothstein's "The Color of Law" for examples on how this was achieved through federal housing policy). It's also the…
Related, and very much so. The biggest indicator of future socioeconomic status is educational attainment. The biggest indicator of educational attainment is wealth. > Where does the biggest source of material wealth typically come from? Housing! > Was housing policy racist? Very explicitly so, even in the progressive Bay Area. See: redlining. > Are some of the policies that stemmed from racism still on the books in major metropolitan areas? Yes! Many of these exact policies are what's keeping from more housing from being built right now! What policies, you ask? Here's a few. -…
Yeah, all this is the stated argument here. But in the US, at least, the underlying argument is about class, and race. If you haven't already, it might be worth reading about redlining, the historical practice of outlining which neighborhoods were "safe" to issue mortgage loans in because they were white and not at risk of non-whites moving in. This was about race, primarily. Redlining became illegal starting in the '70s in many places, and its replacement was exclusionary zoning---a practice that continues to this day that relies instead on race's strong correlate, wealth. Apartments and…
People who run factories aren't going to tear down a house and try and wedge a factory there. That's not the sort of thing anyone wants to eliminate, anyway. You ought to have a look at this book, which makes the link between exclusionary zoning and flat out racism pretty clear: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten... Oh, and I would indeed love to live near a corner store. Lots of people did and would now, too.
> But many voters believe what we should preserve is the single-family home, built environment > Do you believe this is an honest characterization of their core goal? Yes. I can quote Rothstein about racist motivations[0] or Marohn about short-sighted financial recklessness,[1] but I believe more people have nostalgia than malice. Even if they deploy structural racism and racist rhetoric. Most people become set in their ways very quickly, and have difficulty imagining what is good other than what they thought was good when they were young. By now, you cannot find a native-born American who…
The elephant in the room is that much of the US, SF Bay Area included, is still reeling hard from restrictive zoning laws that were extremely racially motivated. Minimum lot sizes, height restrictions, R1/R2 designations et al. were intentionally written into zoning laws so that PoC could not afford to move into primarily white neighborhoods [1]. It might sound like a random tangent, but many of these zoning laws are in the books today, and are the ones used by NIMBYs to restrict new developments in their town. [1] Extensively covered in the book The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Do you still consider it an "absurd generalization"? How many years does it take for the benefits of slavery to disappear? I think it's far longer than you do. British slavery meant more income to the government, which lead to a better navy, which lead to the ability to defend the triangle trade. A better navy helped advance British imperialism. How might Trafalgar have turned out with a weaker British navy? British control of sugar production was built on slavery. But even once the slaves were free in a legal sense, the black population of ex-slaves was still at the bottom of the social…
> Same way US law does. Absent specific laws, to have a claim you have to demonstrate tangible harm in some way. Burden of proof is on the claimant. And in 95% of the cases HN complains about, its impossible to find harm. I don't think you have any idea whether any of these students has even tried to find harm; but, even if you do know that, the inability to prove harm is a legal standard, but it's a far different thing from no harm being done. (I just recently read Rothstein's The color of law, which makes clear, for example, the situation in which people of colour today find themselves,…