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The Urban Displacement Project: Redlining And Gentrification

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Discrimination is deeply woven within the fabric of America’s urban centers. Throughout American history, we see different forms of discrimination take root across the country. Discriminatory practices range in scope and severity, from subtle practices such as redlining, to violent practices such as police brutality; these practices converge into an intersectional highway of prejudice and the lessons learned from them act as stepping stones for our modern society. Minority groups and people of color, specifically the African American community, experience the intersectionality of discrimination due to systemic circumstances. The intersectionality of racism, classism, homophobia and transphobia will be examined within this paper. Racism was …show more content…

These color-coded maps designed by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) were crucial in the development of American cities; an area’s desirability levels were largely based on the racial and ethnic composition of its residents (The Urban Displacement Project). People of color were largely assigned to places designated as hazardous or “blighted”. Residents who lived in these areas were unable to secure loans, buy property, or fix the existing structures (The Urban Displacement Project). This practice propelled forward a viscous cycle of disinvestment that led to the slow disintegration of neighborhoods considered “blighted” by the HOLC. The Urban Displacement Project. Redlining created stark divides in the structure of the American inner cities and a cycle of disinvestment from government and investors that led to an overall lower quality of life for residents in redlined areas. Gentrification Explained, by The Urban Displacement Project, offers another key insight into the shaping of American cities. In the 1950s and 60s, a massive exodus of white middle-class families from America’s inner cities to the suburbs led to a massive depletion in city tax dollars (The Urban Displacement Project). This massive depletion of tax …show more content…

Keisha Blain in “Violence in Minneapolis is rooted in the history of racist policing in America” elaborates upon the governmental condonement of police brutality on black Americans and its effects. Like redlining, state-sanctioned violence from police officers against the African American community has shaped the history of U.S. cities. Police failed to punish white residents, inflicting harm on their black counterparts, and as a result, many black people were lynched, and their killers were never brought to justice. Police are far more likely to arrest and fatally shoot black people in comparison to those who are white, and they rarely receive any reprimand for their actions. The death rate of Black Americans at the hands of police today, is almost the same as what it once was during the lynchings a century ago (Blain, 2020). The film, Fruitvale Station, by Ryan Coogler, examines the life of a young man, Oscar, who lost his life to police brutality. Oscar was a kind man and a good father, whose hopes and dreams are shared with the audience throughout the film. Oscar’s mother requests that he and his friends take the train to the city in hopes of avoiding possible run-ins with the police. Per his mother’s request, they do, but sadly they are still victims. Oscar was approached and jumped by the white male on the train at Fruitvale Station, however, when police were rounding up those involved, they

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Many proponents as well as advocates of gentrification like to use in many regard as code words to back up their claim that gentrification brings “revitalization” “urban renewal” and more importantly “enhances” the community. However, these are what many who are critical of gentrification deem to be “ code words”, because they appear to be ones that exude positivity when they are in fact not expressing the full story of the argument, because underneath this creeping positivity. There still exists this form of stereotyping that minorities, or those from lower socioeconomic means cannot create something that is unique or successful on their own. Furthermore, what existed in their communities before gentrification was one that brought little to no value to society.

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Dr. George E Bardwell, a professor of statistics and mathematics at the University of Denver, had studied park hill housing and school development for many years and prepared a report for the Denver Commission on Community Relations, published in 1966, entitled Park Hill Areas of Denver. In his report he laid out was happening in housing schools, and the gradual segregation in Park Hill and northeast Denver. The real estate practices known as “redlining” and “blockbusting” were at work in these areas of Park Hill. Years earlier In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause outlawed the states’ legal enforcement of racially restrictive covenants in state courts.{9} In this event, decades of segregation laws which compelled Black Americans to live in over-crowded and over-priced ghettos created economic pressures to avail black people of housing in racially segregated neighborhoods were annulled. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 established federal causes of action against blockbusting, including illegal real estate broker claims that Blacks and Hispanics, et al. had or were going to move into a neighborhood, and so devalue the properties.

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Many people like to only see the bad of it instead the better things it can bring. That’s brought on by this idea that gentrification is strictly a racial problem. That black neighborhoods are targeted by whites to push them out of their homes. That’s not always the case, for example, in the Brooklyn neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York City the black population dropped from 81.9 percent in 1990 to 64.6 percent in 2010; however, the Hispanic population grew slightly from 16.3 percent to 19.9 percent in the same time period. And while the number of whites moving in has soared, they still only make up 10.9 percent of the population.

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Title: Gentrifying Chicago neighborhoods. General Purpose: To inform my audience of Gentrification in the Norther part of Chicago around the 1960s. Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience will understand the meaning of gentrification, how Puerto Rican families in the Northern part of Chicago lost their homes to Gentrification, how they fought against gentrification, and how gentrification is now occurring to Mexican families in the Southern part of Chicago. Thesis: Puerto Rican families lost their homes in the 1960s when Lincoln Park was gentrified despites their best efforts, and today Mexican families are losing their homes in Pilsen to gentrification. Introduction I. Attention: What would you risk in order to continue having a home?

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Lance Freeman, an associate professor of urban planning in Columbia, wanted to investigate if there was any displacement going on in two predominantly black neighborhoods that was briskly gentrifying. Much to his dismay, he couldn’t find any correlation between gentrification and displacement. What was surprising to Freeman was his discovery, “poor residents and those without a college education were actually less likely to move if they resided in gentrifying neighborhoods”. (Sternbergh, 19) Freeman adds, “The discourse on gentrification, has tended to overlook the possibility that some of the neighborhood changes associated with gentrification might be appreciated by the prior residents.” (Sternbergh, 19)

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