End Residential Racial Segregation: Build Communities that Look Like America

by FLORENCE WAGMAN ROISMAN

The gravest housing problem in the United States—indeed, I would say, the gravest of all domestic problems in the United States—is residential racial segregation, particularly as manifested in the concentration of African-Americans and Latinos in central cities and inner-ring suburbs, while outer-ring suburbs and exurbs are predominantly white and Anglo.2 What makes this racial separation particularly vicious is its identification with radically disparate resource allocation. Terrible schools, dangerous environments, degraded employment opportunities, inadequate recreational facilities, and other egregious disadvantages pervade minority areas, standing in sharp contrast to the excellent schools, environments, jobs, parks, and other amenities in predominantly white, Anglo, low-poverty suburbs and exurbs.

The consequences of this residential segregation are dire, both for the persons of color who are confined within central areas and for the majority community. The injuries to the former include grievously inadequate education, alarmingly high dropout rates, pervasive under- and unemployment, epidemics of asthma and lead poisoning, and other unhealthy and unsafe environmental conditions. These cumulative injuries deplete residents’ sense that their own humanity is valued and lead to hopelessness. For the majority community, the racial separation means: self-imposed virtual exclusion from the center city and the cultural, educational, historical, and other institutions that are rooted there; lack of the educated workforce needed to sustain and expand twenty-first century society; increased public expenditures for health-care and social services; and the loss of farmland and open space to accommodate more highways, traffic congestion, stress, pollution, and other environmental hazards that spill over municipal boundaries. Residential racial segregation has also defeated efforts to achieve racial integration in the public schools and has hindered substantially efforts to achieve racial integration in employment and reduce racial block voting.

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