While reading the selections from Massey and Denton’s American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the American Underclass, the contrast between the outcomes of the black neighborhoods and the neighborhoods of European immigrants stood out to me. Massey and Denton write that “the manner in which blacks were residentially incorporated into American cities differed fundamentally from the path of spatial assimilation of other ethnic groups” (10). How were these neighborhoods different? What caused this to happen? Why did the two types of neighborhoods have such vastly different outcomes? Would it have been possible for the black ghettos to have the same outcome as the immigrant neighborhoods?

I believe that one explanation for the cause of the integration differences can be linked to the invasion-competition-succession model. Both the blacks and the European immigrants invaded northern cities. The invasion of the two groups differed slightly for the rate of European immigration fluctuated inversely with the Great Migration of blacks from the south to the north. However, I don’t see how this would have greatly influence the integration of the different groups. I think that the major source of inequality between the immigrants and the blacks stems from competition. When settling in the cities, European immigrants “reaffirmed their own ‘whiteness’ by oppressing a people that was even lower in the racial hierarchy” (Massey and Denton 29). This is a stark contrast to the black population who were forced to compete against both the European immigrants and the whites who were already residing in the cities. The European immigrants were able to solidify themselves above the blacks in the hierarchy and this helped integrate the group into the white section of the hierarchy. This resulted in the succession part of the model with blacks segregated from the Europeans and whites.

Massey and Denton claim a ghetto “refers only to the racial make-up of a neighborhood” (19) while our class defines ghettos as “settlements marked by voluntary or involuntary segregation.” I think the class definition, with its specification of voluntary and involuntary segregation, suggests a different approach to what a ghetto actually is. Massey and Denton’s classification fails to distinguish between internal and external segregation. I believe when contrasting enclaves to ghettos, the difference between internal and external segregation, or voluntary and involuntary segregation, is key. Calling both European immigrant neighborhoods, such as Little Italy, and the black neighborhoods described by DuBois in The Philadelphia Negro does not seem right to me. The European neighborhoods tended to be voluntary segregation. I got the sense that the immigrants wanted to live together to share their culture and Massey and Denton described the enclaves as part of the “process of immigrant assimilation” (33). This feels very different than what is referred to as the black ghetto. Blacks were often forced to relocate to Black Belts due to zoning regulations, race riots, violence, and many other negative things. The relocation was not voluntary. Is this a fair comparison to make? Should there be a greater distinction between enclaves and ghettos?

When looking at the differences between European immigrant neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, and white neighborhoods, I notice that there are still parts of this around today. How do we solve this problem? Is it possible to solve it? I think a lot of this stems back to the larger issues of inequality and equity. Much of American society is built off of these issues and there still seems to be no clear solution to the constant inequality so often seen in the U.S. What role does (or should) the Federal government play in all this? We’ve looked at the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954 as evidence that work has been made to try and solve these issues. While I don’t think that solving these inequalities will happen overnight, I think that steps are being taken and believe there will be change.

In our class discussion “Urban Policy and the Rise of the Suburb,” we discussed Herbert Gans’ “Social Life: Suburban Homogeneity and Conformity” and Kenneth Jackson’s “Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream: How Washington Changed the American Housing Market.” These readings focused on the federal policies that accelerated the inequitable formation of the suburbs and the role of homogeneity in suburban life.

Jackson discusses the role federal policies played in shaping the housing market. The inherent bias of these policies had many effects. First, the Federal Highway Act of 1921, 1924, and 1956 provided the funding to create the extensive highway systems we know today. This, in conjunction with increased automobile use made previously uninhabitable lands accessible and feasible for everyday residency. Secondly, the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) in 1933 set up appraisal guidelines that laid the groundwork for racist redlining practices while the Federal Housing Administration in 1934 removed the financial risk of home ownership and standardized construction practices. Finally, the Veterans Administration Mortgage Guarantee in 1944 accelerated mass contraction of homes in the suburbs which were easily attainable only for the homogenous demographic of veterans.

Gans then goes on to discuss the myths of homogeneity in the suburbs, arguing that they were both more diverse and less detrimental than commonly thought. However, what was an important point in our discussion was not about whether his argument was logical and accurate, but highlighting the fact that homogeneity itself isn’t the issue. Rather it is the stark inequity between the groups’ living conditions. Connecting back to the results of the federal policies, neighborhoods with African American residents and older buildings were marked as undesirable, resulting in the divestment of funds from the area. This financial divestment had numerous deleterious effects on the minority populations living there.

The questions that are lingering with me have to do with Gans’ claim that “suburban life (and life of the outer city) is more reliant on quasi-primary ties” and the effects of suburban life on the residents (Class lecture slides 9/11).  While “relationships between neighbors are more intimate than secondary ties”, the transient nature of them make them less intimate than primary ties (Class lecture slides 9/11). Historically, such relationships are often considered to be negative, fostering hyperactive and superficial social lives. However, I found it very interesting to think of such relationships as a continuation of urban anonymity into suburban life. It could be argued that a commuter that leaves each morning and comes back to the privacy of their individual housing unit could be afforded a similar level of privacy and anonymity as an city dweller. Additionally, the proximity of suburban residents does not necessarily indicate shared values or a sense of community beyond child rearing, which is also shaped by differing belief systems. This argument can be furthered in considering how the opportunity for young married couples to move away from family residencies to create their own life through suburban home ownership. Not only does it demonstrate that the desire for autonomy and privacy was pervasive, but it also shows how these populations fulfilled these desires in the suburban setting.

However, I do agree that the lack of heterogeneity in suburban areas, even if less severe than originally thought, has drawbacks. While there is some truth to Gans’ claim that exposure to diversity does not necessarily translate into relationships and tolerance, the persistent segregation that results from 20th century housing policies and the development of the suburbs perpetuates a cycle of racial turnover, racial covenants, and redlining practices. These processes then maintain racial segregation which has significant negative impacts on African Americans in the U.S.. Overall, I am left wondering where we can start to begin fixing the long, complex history of institutional racism, segregation, and the American ghetto.  

Constructing the Ghetto, W.E.B DuBois

The Missing Link & The Construction of the Ghetto, Massey and Denton

Based on the readings and class discussions on the definition of “ghetto”, I have come to the overall conclusion that ghettos were highly concentrated African American neighborhoods in cities that were as a result of racist procedures coming from the government to isolate African Americans from white citizens. These procedures include the Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s. But as I read and discussed in class, I pondered the fact if we all lived in ghettos. I took the definition of ghetto from the readings as a place of a highly segregated racial community of any race as opposed to just applying it to African Americans. If that’s the case, I felt that based on my own studies and life exposure to American cities, the majority of big metropolitan areas are just a bunch of ghettos compressed into one big city.

However, I also felt that there was something off by having the term “ghetto” associated to just any racially homogenous neighborhood, especially those of white communities. The reason I say this is because in this modern media culture that I grew up with, the term “ghetto” always seemed to be correlated with synonyms, such as “unappealing”, “poor”, “violent”, and “minority”. Growing up in NYC, all the neighborhoods I ever visited that were predominantly habited by white citizens were always and still are rich, clean, organized, and safe. Specifically, I am describing neighborhoods, such as the Upper East Side, Midtown, and Lincoln Center, where one will rarely find any black or Latinx residents. These affluent and white neighborhoods makes my neighborhood seem more like the ghetto we discussed in class if we were to compare them.

I could even take my argument further by offering some background history of my own neighborhood. While the NYC housing crisis and drug epidemic of the late 70s and 80s affected the whole city, the effects were more pronounced in areas of high minority concentration, such as the boroughs of Bronx, Brooklyn, and upper Manhattan, where my neighborhood resides. While things started to flip for the better during the 1990s (as a result of new policies implemented to improve NYC housing and reduce crime), in many ways, my neighborhood as well as the communities in other boroughs to this day are still recovering from the dilemma that once engulfed them more than two decades ago. Meanwhile, places like the Upper East side had fewer or less escalated problems than the others outer communities faced during this time. And the racial make-up from these neighborhoods hasn’t changed. The Upper East Side during the 80s was still mostly white residents while Washington Heights is still Caribbean residents, mostly from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (although it seems to be changing as a result of gentrification).

In many ways, I always felt that a ghetto was always used as a term to describe a neighborhood with the majority of the population compromising of minority groups along with low safety, weak schools, and low economic activity. That’s why it feels weird for me to call something like the Upper East side as a ghetto. I even become skeptical calling an affluent black community a ghetto. A ghetto as I was raised to believe in, doesn’t necessarily have to be a typical de-industrialized black community with abandoned houses, abandoned lawns, broken windows, and squatters living in vacant places (much of what stereotypical online photos of Detroit have become). Instead, I’ve always seen a minority neighborhood with residents of low human capital, low income, and a place continuously recovering from effects of crime and drug era decades ago enough to call a ghetto. And obviously, any neighborhood with the same characteristics of people like the ones stated above and a neighborhood with a current ongoing drug and crime problem is definitely a ghetto.

This week we read and learned about the rise of the American suburb and the defining characteristics of these areas. Inherently tied to this history is the formation of redlining, zoning laws, and other federal policy that led to the degradation of certain urban communities. Herbert Gans uses his experience within a Levittowns to attempt to debunk some of the stereotypes that Levittowns are homogenous and culturally destructive. In addition to his atypical understanding of what qualifies an area as “diverse”, a thorough research and history provided by Kenneth Jackson reveals how these suburbs were not only relatively homogenous, but strategically created to be that way. The neighborly climate of Levittowns that Gans paints contrasts sharply with the divisive government policies constructed to limit housing options for minority populations.

I have been thinking about my question for the class of whether urban enclaves can also possess the characteristics of the suburbs because of their typical ethnic or racial homogeny. Based on my impression of suburban communities and Jackson’s piece, I find that I agree far more with the stereotypes of suburban communities that Gans delineates at the beginning of his argument. Gans writes that homogeny imposes a conformity that further reduces individuality. I have decided that although they may be homogenous, according to Simmel, the hyper-stimulation that defines cities leads to a blasé attitude and eventually personal freedom and the ability to be individual. Although pressures and social activity come with the suburbs, it is nowhere near the amount of violent stimuli that defines the city. Therefore, even though urban enclaves can be racially or ethnically homogenous, there is not the same pressure to conform that one finds in the suburbs.

I have also been thinking about is the rise of American capitalism and neoliberalism. I began thinking about this during our discussion of the outer city enclaves and industry towns. Industrial employees were required to live in these enclaves, were heavily inspected, and still had to pay rent. This treatment of workers as pawns is a slightly more overt depiction of capitalism, but I believe those living in Levittowns were restricted in comparable ways. The cookie-cutter, mass-produced, homogenous structures of Levittowns reek of capitalist conformity and control. Apart from some of the obvious physical restrictions described by Gans, like not being able to have a fence, they are socially isolated and federally confined.

Jackson writes that federal involvement in housing was seen as socialist. However, once federal housing policies became more prevalent, it was increasingly clear how far from socialism they actually were. The accelerated rate at which new homes were built due to the financial encouragement of the federal tax code to build new buildings rather than restore old ones, served to directly benefit privileged populations. The ways in which these policies quickly became racialized, seems reminiscent of the original creation of “race” as an American social construct. Colonizers initially brought white Europeans and Africans to America as slaves, but quickly realized they were outnumbered by those they were enslaving and had to devise a way to pin the two groups against each other. They created a racial hierarchy for economic and capitalistic gain. It is hard to not consider a similar conspiracy in the description of housing in the early 20th century. We discussed in class how cities used to not be defined by segregation. The government found ways to once again invade the minds of American citizens with neoliberal values and racism through housing policy. Jackson touches upon the ways in which HOLC appraisal standards and rankings contributed to notions of racial and ethnic worth. I wonder what psychological effects other federal housing policy has had.

One thing that I have found interesting about the readings and class so far is that although conditions for economically and racially marginalized groups are far worse, no one actually benefits completely from this segregation. In the Gold Coast, people live in constant fear of social ruin due to the pressures of homogeny; in cities, the wealthy experience anomie due to a lack of predictability; in the suburbs, people lose their sense of individuality and are forced to conform in very isolated, homogenous communities. Even those at the top of the social hierarchy are not necessarily happy with the effects of this hierarchy. A lack of satisfaction seems to tie all of these communities together.

“Levvittowns.” US History Scene, http://ushistoryscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/LevittownPA.jpg.

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