Public Employee Press

Other Voices
Jane LaTour
The persistence of housing segregation

New York City ranks third among the most segregated major cities in the United States - behind Chicago and Los Angeles.

Decades ago, DC 37 was one of a few unions to support Yonkers Mayor Nicholas Wasicsko when he ran for a second term in a primary and faced fierce opposition because of his support for court-ordered integration of public housing.

The landmark housing case of the 1980s and '90s was the subject of "Show Me a Hero," a riveting HBO mini-series based on the book of the same title by former New York Times reporter Lisa Belkin.

The mini-series and book had a haunting effect on me: They made me wonder how our world continues to be highly segregated despite laws and legal challenges and the work of a few heroes who fight against this practice.

As with the landmark housing case in our neighboring community of Yonkers, a very similar case in Westchester County now unfolding in the courts makes clear that housing segregation remains a national problem.

New York City ranks third among the most segregated major cities in the United States - behind Chicago and Los Angeles.

A recent New York Times editorial noted that, 50 years after the creation of the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, housing discrimination and racial segregation are "a direct consequence of federal, state, and local housing policies that encourage - indeed subsidize - racial and economic segregation."

Increasingly, scholars and community activists are raising the alarm about the persistence of housing segregation. A wealth of information on the subject is available.

In their book "American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass," scholars Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton analyze the problem.

Like many others, they argue that housing segregation is at the root of the economic isolation of minority families.

Roberta Gold's "When Tenants Claimed the City" tells the story of how New York City came to have the second largest stock of public housing in the nation.

It describes the movement that fought for it-alongside the fight for integration, rent regulation, and more.

Currently two museums are featuring exhibits well worth visiting for the light they shed on these questions.

"Black Suburbia: From Levittown to Ferguson" at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, includes discussions with leading scholars, blog posts, and more.

The exhibit "Affordable New York: A Housing Legacy," at the Museum of the City of New York, looks at the history of creating below-market housing for city residents.

As the city undertakes vast rezoning campaigns and affordable housing is on the agenda, we all need to get involved - once again - as supporters of fair housing in the public decision-making process, which unfortunately continues to perpetuate isolation, exclusion, and discrimination.

Once upon a time, tenants did claim the city - with a democratic vision for what that city should look like.

But while ethnic groups throughout history have translated economic gains into advantages for their children through housing in better neighborhoods, this is not the case for African-Americans. Unfortunately, that transition hasn't occurred because of the prejudice and discriminatory practices that perpetuate housing segregation.

Jane LaTour is an author and former associate editor at Public Employee Press.