Race and Housing: A Review and Comments on the Content and Effects of Federal Policy
| Date | 01 January 1979 |
| Author | Richard A. Smith,Robert E. Mitchell |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271627944100113 |
| Published date | 01 January 1979 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
168
Race
and
Housing:
A
Review
and
Comments
on
the
Content
and
Effects
of
Federal
Policy
By
ROBERT
E.
MITCHELL
and
RICHARD
A.
SMITH
ABSTRACT:
Unlike
school
integration
measures,
housing
and
community
development
policies
attack
the
causes
rather
than
simply
the
symptoms
of
racial
segregation
in
urban
communities.
Federal
policies
are
examined
with
regard
to
two
goals:
protection
of
the
individual’s
right
to
a
decent
home
and
a
suitable
living
environment,
and
the
social
goal
of
achieving
stable
interracial
residential
environments.
Although
both
supply
and
demand
housing
strategies
have
had
some,
but
still
unmeasured,
success
in
realizing
both
goals,
the
public
and
private
sector
delivery
systems
have
sustained
the
dual
housing
market.
Future
progress
will
depend
on
the
mixture
of
demand
and
supply
strategies
adopted,
changes
in
delivery
systems,
the
success
of
federal
enforcement
efforts,
the
emphasis
placed
on
broad
strategy
options,
and
socioeconomic
trends
not
easily
influenced
by
public
policy.
Robert
E.
Mitchell received
his
Ph.D.
in
sociology
from
Columbia
University.
He
has
been
coordinator
of
international
research
at
Berkeley’s
Survey
Research
Center,
founding
director
of
the
Social
Survey
Research
Centre
of
the
Chinese
University
of
Hong
Kong,
Executit)e
Director
of
Florida
Governor
Askew’s
Task
Force
on
Housing
and
Community
Development,
Director
of the
Florida
Task
Force
on
Marriage
and
the
Family
Unit,
and
a
housing
and
community
development
consultant
to
the
United
Nations
and
the
Agency
for
International
Development.
Currently
a
Professor
of
Urban
and
Regional
Planning
at
Florida
State
University.
Professor
Mitchell
has
published
on
housing,
community
development,
family,
and
national
development
issues.
Richard
A.
Smith
received
his
Ph.D.
in
planning
from
Cornell
University.
He
has
worked
as
a
planner
in
London,
England
and
been
a
consultant
to
public
and
private
planning
agencies
in
America.
An
Associate
Professor
of
Urban
and
Regional
Planning
at
Florida
State
University,
and
currently
teaching
in
the
University’s
London
Program,
Professor
Smith
has
published
on
community
decisionmaking
and
structures,
neighborhood
structure,
planning
theory,
criminal
justice
planning,
urbanization,
and
racial
discrimination
in
housing.
ANNALS,
AAPSS,
441,
Jan.
1979
169
THIS
PAPER
is
concerned
with
JL
an
examination
of
federal
housing
and
community
develop-
ment
policies
as
they
affect
two
important
racial
considerations:
the
supply
and
quality
of
housing
avail-
able
to
minority
groups,
and
the
spatial
distribution
of
this
housing
(that
is,
the
issue
of
housing
segre-
gation.)
While
the
two
issues
are
analytically
separate,
the
manner
in
which
urban
areas
have
grown
has
resulted
in
their
being
highly
inter-
related :
since
housing
types
and
quality
tend
not
to
be
randomly
distributed
across
urban
areas,
dis-
crimination
in
the
allocation
of
housing
is
also
likely
to
result
in
spatial
segregation.
Similarly,
dis-
crimination
in
the
process
whereby
groups
are
allocated
housing
in
space
is
likely
to
affect
the
sup-
ply
and
quality
of
the
housing
they
occupy.
The
extent
to
which
disparities
exist
in
supply
and
quality
of
hous-
ing,
and
in
the
distribution
of
the
housing
occupied
by
whites
and
blacks,
has
been
fully
documented
elsewhere.
Generally
we
recognize
higher
levels
of
overcrowding,
greater
density,
more
dilapidation,
lower
levels
of
home
ownership,
higher
expenditures
for
comparable
quality
housing,
less
satisfactory
housing
environments,
and
fewer
locational
choices
for
the
black
population
of
metropolitan
areas
than
for
whites.
The
prospects
for
changing
this
situation
without
mas-
sive
and
dedicated
interventions
through
public
policy
and
program-
ming
are
not
good.,
Two
trends
generally
believed
to
have
amel-
iorating
effects-the
increasing
in-
come
of
black
households
relative
to
whites
and
the
decreasing
sup-
port
for
housing
and
other
forms
of
discrimination
within
the
society
at
large-have
had
only
limited
im-
pact.
Undoubtedly,
increasing
the
purchasing
power
of
black
house-
holds
will
allow
for
some
improve-
ment
in
housing
quality,
but
as
long
as
new
housing
is
primarily
a
suburban
phenomenon,
and
dis-
crimination
in
allocating
spatial
locations
exists,
the
alternative
types
of
housing
and
housing
environ-
ments
available
to
blacks
will
be
limited.
We
also
have
come
to
recog-
nize
that
attitude
changes
are
not
sufficient.
Given
the
complexity
of
home
buying,
locational
decisions,
and
the
operations
of
the
housing
market,
neighborhoods
may
con-
tinue
to
turn
from
white
to
black
under
conditions
of
low
discrimina-
tion.
Even
mild
feelings
of
racial
preference
on
the
part
of
whites
are
likely
to
be
sufficient
to
pro-
duce
segregation
patterns
similar
to
those
occurring
when
racial
prefer-
ences
are
more
strongly
held.
Thus,
government
intervention,
in
an
attempt
to
influence
the
supply
and
location
of
housing
available
to
minorities,
is
a
growing
necessity.
While
the
federal
government
has
long
maintained
this
intervention,
committing
the
nation
to
the
goal
of
a
decent
home
and
suitable
living
environment
for
every
American
family,
it
has
often
acted
to
aggravate
rather
than
ameliorate
the
housing
situation
of
minorities.
Only
re-
cently
have
the
two
aspects
of
this
goal-housing
and
housing
environ-
ments-as
they
apply
to
black
house-
holds
been
given
official
emphasis,
interpreted
as:
1)
the
rights
of
in-
dividuals,
regardless
of
race,
to
housing;
and
2)
the
social
environ-
ment
goal
of racially
integrated
hous-
ing
projects,
neighborhoods,
com-
munities,
and
metropolitan
areas.
To
accomplish
these
goals,
signif-
icant
federal,
state,
and
local
civil
rights
legislation
has
been
enacted,
new
housing
and
community
de-
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