“Redlining” the Technical Term for what Banks were doing to Minority Suburbs

After World War II, the United States government started a huge surge toward a new form of living that was revolutionary for its time: the suburbs. With benefits that seemed promising, the movement has progressed into the neighborhoods many of us live in today. Unfortunately, the movement’s bleak history stains our neighborhoods as it has horrible economic side effects that are still relevant to this day.

With the intention of creating massive families that would improve the society of the United States, the switch to living in a suburban community has gained a lot more popularity and is still growing.

One of the problems with the movement at its beginning was that it created a lot of segregation among races in the United States, which was detrimental to American society. In an effort to correct their mistake, the government created numerous policies which attempted to make this process unbiased for all races. an example of this was the Fair Housing Act of 1968 which was passed to ban discrimination “in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability” (Madrigal.) The main purpose of this was so that people would follow this legislation. However, it didn’t end up happening as expected.

It appeared that as each legislation was passed, some people always discovered new ways to discriminate against others through the process of owning a house in the suburbs. This prompted powerful government action by means of amending the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Each Act was amended in order to provide protection for these groups of people in the process of purchasing public housing. At the time, the anti-discriminatory acts seemed to be making a difference. Nowadays, the truth is that there are still issues with the anti-discriminatory acts that people have found ways around, making the whole thing inefficient.

An example of this is Fort Lawndale in Chicago. Since 2012, white people have been getting three times the income as black people in the city. However, the primarily black neighborhoods have been charged over 40 times the rate of the primarily white neighborhoods (Badger.) Seeing these families get charged at such a high rate is absolutely disgusting. It also shows how minute the evolution of this movement has been over the last 75 years. Alexis Madrigal claims that the neighborhoods in California will have the same fate, stating that they will be exclusively white in a neighborhood and entirely black just two blocks away. The division between neighborhoods will lead to the same racially biased policies that are hurting the suburbs of Chicago, which demonstrates how vast the issues can be regarding the suburban movement.

The technical term for what banks were doing to minority suburbs in the 1930s was “redlining,” which basically meant that a neighborhood was banned from receiving materials necessary to survive (Harris.) Redlining was allegedly gotten rid of by the Fair Housing Act. However, it is clear that there are cases of it in our current economic world. Similarly, if a family was identified in a primary minority neighborhood in the 1950s, then “you may not have the family wealth or down payment help to become a homeowner today” (HUD.) Whether it’s banks focusing on similar neighborhoods as in the 50s or redlining, banks have been creating racism nowadays that is preventing the true goal of the suburban movement from being achieved. That goal should be “to offer equal access to families that look just as eligible on paper as white homeowners nearby,” according to Emily Badger. Because the Department of Housing and Urban Development has not reached this goal yet, the movement of the suburbs has served to benefit only the white and rich families while leaving the possibility of obtaining affordable housing out of reach from poor minorities.

Although the suburban movement has had a racist reputation, many people view the suburbs as an advantageous living situation. It is much more peaceful than the hectic rush of the city, and those who live in the suburbs are generally happier than those that live in the city. Also, schools are generally better in the suburbs because of the higher tax rates which go to fund the public school systems in these communities. Although all of this will inevitably be beneficial to society, it is just only if it can be attained by all people regardless of class and race. Until society finds an effective way to bring an end to this economic inequality which still stains the housing system today, the overall economic backlash of suburban living will only increase the tensions between one another.

Works Cited

1. Badger, Emily. “Redlining: Still a Thing.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 28 May 2015
2. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
3. Madrigal, Alexis C. “The Racist Housing Policy That Made Your Neighborhood.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 22 May 2014.
4. Harris, Alexander. “The Advantages of Living in the Suburbs.” Home Guides | SF Gate, homeguides.sfgate.com/advantages-living-suburbs-78171.html.

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