Housing Segregation Today Explained by the Past
City of American Dreams by Margaret Garb vividly depicts the life in Chicago after civil war. In a historical context, Garb argues that under the change from an agrarian society to an industrialized society, American’s value of home ownership and its association to the idea of “American dreams” changed, and these changes led to sharply dividing housing in the city and the suburban areas based on races and classes. In the seventh chapter, Garb describes to us the history of Chicago’s integration of its growing African-American population. In African-American neighborhoods, the values of the housing properties decline sharply because of the negligence from the city government, the failure for landlords to maintain local environment, widespread blockbusting, diseases, and restricted access of credit for African-American to purchase a home. The unfair treatment to African-American intensify the relationship between white people and black people in the city, resulting in a race riot that erupted in July 1919. The paper has provoked me to think about my own observation and experience on the topic of housing segregation in the same area that is closely relevant to me currently, Chicago. I suggest that the housing segregation today can to be traced back to the past and to some extent, explained by the past, and it is important for general public to recognize the relationship between the past and the present, in order to be more conscious and understanding of the housing segregation situation, and to develop effective solutions for the future.
In a city that in the past has employed housing segregation based on races and classes, its current situations of city areas can differ hugely. When I traveled to Chicago for the first time, and when I was planning on taking the Green line train to visit the University of Chicago, which locates in the south, I was warned by an old lady in the train station that I should avoid taking the Green line and avoid going to the south alone, because it is “very dangerous”. As a foreigner, I was shocked. Back in my hostel area in downtown Chicago, it seems to be pretty safe, with lots of people and cars on the busy streets, policemen standing around the district corners, and big buildings with corporations that symbolize this city’s economic strength. However, that’s just one part of Chicago – different areas of the city seem to differ a lot, in terms of the local infrastructure, environment, safety, and the race and economical background of the people who live there. My friend has pointed to me once on a map of the city that certain areas are considered the safest, which are the rich white neighborhoods, and certain areas are not safe, which are the poor black neighborhoods. And these difference can be traced back to the post-civil war period, when Chicago’s dominant white society discriminate against black people and fear to live in a community where, as they conceived, racially inferior people, present. The local government made policies that intentionally push African Americans to certain areas in the city that limit their access to urban capital and opportunities, and ignored the infrastructure and public health support in those areas. The situation today is thus traced back to its origin, how everything happens the way it is now.
It is important that we recognize the relationship as described above, to avoid judging an area too subjectively with a single-faceted view. In the topic of housing segregation, it is very easy for people who are not living in the historical racial segregated covenants to derive racial stereotype on the people living there. For example, as mentioned in the article How Champaign’s Segregated North End was Created 1940 – 1960 by Natalie Prochaska, the white people in the city of Champaign-Urbana considered “the unsightly appearance of the overcrowded Negro areas is sufficient evidence of carelessness, neglect and a disregard for the upkeep of property; and these are cited as racial traits”. In fact, it is still quite common to hear racial comments that links the uncleanness and messiness of a community to the laziness and incapability of the race group that live there. And this single-faceted and subjective notion is very dangerous, because it ignores the fact that the racial group living in the area does not receive fair and justifiable amount of resources from the city, rather, their life is made harder with lots of restrictions from businesses and policies. The notion therefore, could become a back-up excuse for the dominant group in a society to justify their own advantageous location and status and continue to push people with color into different forms of housing segregation, rather than recognizing the problem of racism inherent in housing segregation and improving the situation.
