Land use and housing policies to reduce concentrated poverty and racial segregation.

• Author: Orfield, Myron

INTRODUCTION

As metropolitan areas spread over huge stretches of land, residents living at the core, particularly poor Blacks and Latinos, become increasingly isolated from the jobs and other life opportunities that are rapidly dispersing among increasingly farflung suburbs. The concentration of existing affordable housing in central cities (1) and older suburbs perpetuates the isolation of low-income residents and people of color from life opportunities available to suburban residents. (2) One result is to reinforce the racial segregration which is intimately related to the concentration of poverty at the urban core and in older, inner-ring suburbs. (3)

Urban sprawl tends to exacerbate residential racial segregation (4) because unchecked development at the fringe permits rapid abandonment of inner-suburban and central-city housing stocks as White residents move into expanding suburban developments. The resulting isolation of non-Whites in the increasingly segregated areas that Whites abandon effectively denies many of those residents access to the sites of opportunity in distant, developing areas of the region. (5) This isolation is perpetuated not only by the concentration of existing affordable housing in central cities and older suburbs, but by the barriers to developing affordable housing in most outlying suburbs. One of the most invidious barriers is exclusionary zoning.

Governmental fragmentation--the proliferation of separate political jurisdictions--facilitates structures such as exclusionary zoning laws. (6) By prohibiting the development of housing that only the better-off can afford, these local policies effectively exclude the poor and people of color from the places that erect those policy fences. Together with fragmented school districts that institutionalize the racial segregation of students, practices such as exclusionary zoning unnecessarily burden both the affected individuals and metropolitan regions. (7)

The harmful effects of sprawl and fragmentation on people of color have been well documented. Racial segregation concentrates poverty, with or without class segregation, which Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton have demonstrated with their extensive research. (8) Massey and Denton explain that "racial segregation--and its characteristic institutional form, the Black ghetto--are the key structural factors responsible for the perpetuation of Black poverty in the United States." (9)

Together with overt racial discrimination, as where realtors steer Blacks and Whites into segregated neighborhoods, (10) the structural racism that restricts affordable housing to ghettoized areas of the urban core intensifies racial segregation and perpetuates poverty. To address both overt and structural racism requires undoing segregation and making it possible for people to live in places where they can access opportunities for jobs, quality schools, and social networks. Making affordable housing available throughout a metro region, rather than in segregated places distant from opportunity, is a significant means to address segregation and concentrated poverty.

In recent years, scholarship about potential reform has been increasingly pessimistic, citing enduring local sovereignty over land use as a barrier to regional cooperation, regional planning, regional housing, and regional tax-based sharing. (11) In response, this article reviews housing and land use policies that several states have enacted to increase the availability of affordable housing in metropolitan regions by countering sprawl and the effects of governmental fragmentation. It illustrates these approaches with case examples of the most promising approaches thus far attempted in the nation's metropolitan regions, and summarizes the empirical and analytic research evaluating the effectiveness of these policies. The success of such policies is measured largely by the extent to which they increase the stock of affordable housing available to nonWhite and poor residents, and by their potential to reduce residential racial segregation. The examples presented are the most hopeful illustrations of approaches that states and metropolitan regions can adopt to counter the inequitable effects of sprawl and fragmentation.

This article recommends that land use and housing policies be marshaled to reduce residential racial segregation and concentrated poverty. Such policies should be statewide, or at least regional, in scope. Isolated policies will encourage leap-frog development that in turn will promote both sprawl and racial segregation. (12)

Secondly, state legislatures must adopt a coordinated policy approach. This article uses Oregon's comprehensive land use legislation as a paradigmatic example of policies that effectively promote affordable housing and decrease urban sprawl. Other regional government policies that promote integration and reduce sprawl also serve as useful models. The nine policies that I believe are necessary to promote stable metropolitan living patterns are discussed in Part VI of this article.

With the adoption of a regional approach to governance of development and the nine policies laid out below, metropolitan regions can work to reduce sprawl and promote integrated communities. This Article addresses the seriousness of segregation and the dire consequences it has on both poor minorities and the middle-class Whites who are separated from people of color. It then analyzes Oregon's legislative scheme to promote affordable housing and manage urban growth. Part III discusses the necessity of inclusionary housing policies to promote mixed-income developments, while Part IV examines the benefit of dispersed subsidized housing in the context of the Twin Cities' progressive siting policies of the 1970s and the Area Wide Housing Program. Finally, Part V discusses positive integration measures, and Part VI sets forth the nine policy recommendations noted above in detail.

1. THE PROBLEM OF SEGREGATION

   Housing discrimination contributes to the racial segregation of the poor. (13) Even today, real estate agents discriminate against middle- and low-income minorities by showing them a segregated subset of the market, while at the same time steering Whites away from communities with people of color. (14) Discrimination against minorities also abounds in mortgage lending. (15)

   Discrimination and segregation are not confined to the inner-city; instead, they affect large parts of suburbia. For example, a recent study of metropolitan Boston showed that nearly half of Black homebuyers were concentrated in only seven of 126 communities. (16)

   The way in which government agencies have located public housing projects is also a particularly important cause of segregation. (17) Since the 1930s, housing authorities concentrated public housing sites in inner cities and, since 1969, filled them with poor tenants rather than encouraging mixed-income, racially-stable communities. (18) Some commentators have theorized that if the federal government had not segregated public housing or the tenants of public housing, mandatory busing to desegregate public schools in the 1960s and 1970s would not have been necessary. (19)

   These forces of segregation and larger patterns of governmental fragmentation (20) limit most of the Black and Latino middle classes, along with poor minorities, to living in areas with increasing poverty and diminishing opportunity. In 2000, about half of both the Black and Latino middle classes had suburbanized in the one hundred largest regions. (21) Because of housing discrimination, however, Blacks and Latinos who left the city often ended up in at-risk, segregated communities characterized by older housing stock, slow growth, and low tax bases--the resources that support public services and schools. (22) Residents in these at-risk segregated communities have high poverty rates and high concentrations of minority students in the schools. (23) These realities decrease opportunities for middle class minorities as compared with their White counterparts in education, wealth acquisition in home equity, and employment. (24)

   Because of their concentration in distressed, racially segregated cities and inner suburbs, the majority of poor Blacks and Latinos live in poor neighborhoods and attend poor schools; at the same time, poor Whites more often than not live in middle-income neighborhoods and attend middle-class schools. (25) Children who grow up in densely poor neighborhoods and attend low-income schools face many barriers to academic and occupational achievement. Studies show they are more likely than children in mixedincome schools and communities to drop out of high school or become pregnant as teenagers. (26) Long-term social isolation, caused by racial discrimination, also leads to the formation of gangs and other "oppositional social identit[ies]" in deprived communities that are held out of the mainstream of opportunity. (27) In addition, racial and social isolation leads to linguistic isolation, which limits employment opportunities for poor minorities. (28) Neighborhoods with concentrated poverty have very high crime rates, often many times higher than suburban violent crime rates, and huge health disparities resulting from the concentration of environmental hazards, stress, inadequate health care facilities, and poor quality food. (29) The increased need for services, the lack of role models and social connections to higher education and employment, oppositional cultures, and other problems of poverty make it even more difficult for teachers to do their jobs in public schools. (30)

   All individuals--including poor people of color--benefit from living in affluent and opportunity-rich neighborhoods with large tax bases and abundant entry-level jobs. Integration has long-term benefits for people of all races. Blacks, Latinos, and Whites from desegregated elementary schools are more likely than their counterparts from segregated...