Reflections on the Persistence of Racial Segregation in Housing

• Author: Alan C. Weinstein
• Position: Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law/Professor of Urban Studies,
• Pages: 59-77

REFLECTIONS ON THE PERSISTENCE OF RACIAL

SEGREGATION IN HOUSING

ALAN C. WEINSTEIN*

I.!INTRODUCTION

My reflection on Professor Roberts’ Sullivan Lecture poses two

questions. First, how far have we come as a nation from the hyper-

segregated housing patterns of the 1930s through 1960s that Professor

Roberts described in her lecture? Regrettably, the answer appears to be not

far at all. Further, we are today faced with a second form of hyper-

segregation, one based on income rather than race.1 Second, why have we

made so little progress to date in addressing housing segregation? The

simple answer here, of course, is that efforts to address the situation

Professor Roberts describes have proved inadequate.2 But why? While a

comprehensive answer to that question is well beyond the scope of this

writing, the author examines why one of the efforts has proven inadequate:

the attempts to combat “exclusionary zoning.”3

II.!RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION THEN AND NOW

Professor Roberts’ article notes that, using one common measure of

racial segregation, the “isolation index,” which measu res the extent to

which blacks live in neighborhoods that are predominantly black, “[t]he

spatial isolation of African-Americans in Chicago ‘in creased from only

Copyright © 2016, Alan C. Weinstein.

* Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law/Professor of Urban Studies,

Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University.

1 See, e.g., Sean F. Reardon & Kendra Bischoff, Growth in the Residential Segregation

of Families by Income, 1970–2009, US2010 PROJECT (Nov. 2011), https://

s4.ad.brown.edu/Projects/Diversity/Data/Report/report111111.pdf [https://perma.cc/T4RG-

XW4F] (concluding that segregation of families by income has grown significantly in the

last 40 years); Paul A. Jargowsky, The Architecture of Segregation: Civil Unrest, the

Concentration of Poverty, and Public Policy, CENTURY FOUND. 1 (Aug. 9, 2015), https://s3-

us-west-2.amazonaws.com/production.tcf.org/app/uploads/2015/08/07182514/Jargowsky_

ArchitectureofSegregation-11.pdf [https://perma.cc/XSX2-V7LG] (finding “a dramatic

increase in the number of high-poverty neighborhoods” and showing that the “number of

people living in high-poverty ghettos, barrios, and slums has nearly doubled since 2000,

rising from 7.2 million to 13.8 million”).

2 See Reardon & Bischoff, supra note 1, at abstract.

3 See infra Part IV.

60 CAPITAL UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [45:59

10% in 1900 to 70% thirty years later.’”4 The situation Professor Roberts

describes has changed little over the ensuing decades. Based on data from

the US2010 Project, the spatial isolation of African-Americans in Chicago

had increased to 89.9% by 1980.5 While the isolation index for African-

Americans had declined to 79.9% by 2010,6 that figur e still represents a

relative increase in isolation for African-Americans of over 14% when

compared to the 1930 figure noted by Professor Roberts.7

Another commonly used measure of segregation in housing is the

dissimilarity index.8 As explained by the US2010 Project:

The dissimilarity index m easures whether one particular

group is distributed across census tracts in the

metropolitan area in the same way as another group. A

high value indicates that the two groups tend to live in

different tracts. D[issimilarity] ranges from 0 to 100. A

value of 60 (or above) is considered very high. It means

that 60% (or more) of the members of one group would

need to move to a different tract in order for the two

groups to be equally distributed. Values of 40 or 50 are

usually considered a moderate level of segregation, and

values of 30 or below are considered to be fairly low.9

4 Dorothy E. Roberts, Crossing Two Color Lines: Interracial Marriage and Residential

Segregation in Chicago, 45 CAP. U. L. REV. 1, 10–11 (2017) (citing DOUGLAS S. MASSEY &

NANCY A. DENTON, AMERICAN APARTHEID: SEGREGATION AND THE MAKING OF THE

UNDERCLASS 24 (1993)). The isolation index is the percentage of same-group population in

the census tract where the average member of a racial/ethnic group lives. DOUGLAS S.

MASSEY & NANCY A. DENTON, AMERICAN APARTHEID: SEGREGATION AND THE MAKING OF

THE UNDERCLASS 23 (1993). It has a lower bound of zero (for a very small group that is

quite dispersed) to 100 (meaning that group members are entirely isolated from other

groups). See id. Thus, the index measures “the extent to which minority members are

exposed only to one another . . . .” Douglas S. Massey & Nancy A. Denton, The Dimensions

of Residential Segregation, 67 SOC. FORCES 281, 288 (1988); Margery Austin Turner &

Judson James, Discrimination as an Object of Mea surement, 17 CITYSCAPE: J. POL’Y DEV.

& RES. 3, 3 (2015) (describing how discrimination in housing is measured). Note, however,

that this index is “affected b y the size of the group—it is almost inevitably smaller for

smaller groups, and it is likely to rise over time if the group becomes larger.” Residential

Segregation, DIVERSITY & DISPARITIES, https://s4.ad.brown.edu/projects/diversity/

segregation2010/Default.aspx [https://perma.cc/SK8X-D9QB].

5 Chicago City, DIVERSITY & DISPARITIES, https://s4.ad.brown.edu/projects/diversity/

segregation2010/city.aspx?cityid=1714000 [https://perma.cc/LK46-3DSR].

6 Id.

7 See Roberts, supra note 4, at 10–11.

8 See Chicago City, supra note 5.

9 Id.