The history of Gentrification & Parkdale

       The following paper will explore the history of South Parkdale and its experience with, and establishment for, gentrification. The paper will go further and unravel the larger concepts surrounding gentrification, such as its stages and processes, explanations for its existence, as well as exploring the rhetoric and government policy that has been created for its promotion and support throughout the urban landscape.

       As of 2001, 93% of South Parkdale residents rented their accommodations, whereas the Toronto metropolitan average of the same year was only 37% (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). Further, the median household income of Parkdale was $34,491 in 2001, substantially lower than the rest of Toronto at a median of $59,502 (Whitzman & Slater, 2006).

       South Parkdale has been described as the final frontier of the Queen Street West stretch of gentrification, which has transformed the area into an artistic, cultural and social haven for Torontonians (Slater, 2004). South Parkdale remains largely unscathed from the larger impacts of gentrification experienced to the east, although you can see the beginnings already taking root with the plethora of boutiques, cafes, hipster frequented restaurants and bars, and independent art galleries springing up throughout the area (Slater, 2004).

The life of Parkdale

       In 1889 Toronto annexed the Village of Parkdale and this initiated a rapid development period for the newly christened area. The southern portion named South Parkdale became an attractive commuter suburb, with connections via the nearby railway as well as the addition of streetcars later on (Slater, 2004). Access to Lake Ontario and north to Queen Street directed the construction of street layouts (Slater, 2004). At the same time as Parkdale was being formed Toronto was experiencing an apartment boom, and many developers were anxious to build in the prestigious Parkdale area (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). By 1915 over 200 units had been built amongst 10 large apartment buildings concentrated largely along King Street and Queen Street (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). Along side streets a further 22 smaller apartment buildings had been constructed, bringing South Parkdale to hold one third of all apartment buildings in Toronto at the time (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). These apartment buildings were designed and constructed well, housing mostly sales and clerical workers, yet the media decried them as tenements akin to the slums of New York or London (Whitzman & Slater, 2006).

       In 1912, Toronto City Council voted unanimously to ban all future apartment building construction, save for a few commercial streets, after public health reports and politicians denounced these types of living spaces as the breeding grounds of poverty and social decay, and further were contagions to surrounding property values (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). This bylaw however did nothing to stop further apartment building developments, as the number of projects actually increased within a few years (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). And so, even back when South Parkdale was inhabited by a majority of businessmen, clerical workers, and other professionals, the same slum rhetoric was being used to associate multi-unit housing with social decline (Whitzman & Slater, 2006).

       Parkdale by 1941 contained 62% of its single-family housing stock as multi-family occupant dwellings, nearly double the average of Toronto at the time (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). This trend to divide single-family dwellings was propelled by the Great Depression, World War II, and the simple fact that the often large Victorian houses were very accommodating to apartment conversion (Whitzman & Slater, 2006). This influx of renters caused Parkdale’s homeownership rates to drop from 51% in 1931 to 14% in 1941 (Whitzman & Slater, 2006).

       The 1950’s brought great change to South Parkdale as planners began to regard many areas as slums that stood in the way of construction for the Gardiner Expressway, and as such proposed that ‘urban renewal’ via redevelopment was in order to ameliorate the problem (Slater, 2004). Deindustrialization had brought decay and disuse to much of the waterfront of Toronto, and so the move to build highways that would open up the city and spur foreign investment were heralded by planners as of more importance than the neighborhoods their construction may displace (Slater, 2004). By the end of the 1950’s the Gardiner Expressway effectively became a barrier between South Parkdale and the lake, demolishing over 170 houses and permanently erasing many streets from the landscape (Slater, 2004).

      The latter half of the twentieth century brought a North American wide change to its view on the care for psychiatric patients, favouring deinstitutionalization and ‘community-based care’ (Slater, 2004). Toronto was not immune to this new persuasive argument, and was pushed along by other forces such as the dismantling of the welfare state under neoliberal political change following the economic recession of the 1980s (Slater, 2004). In the late 1970s Lakeshore Provincial Psychiatric Hospital had been closed down releasing many psychiatric patients into the public (Slater, 2004). This was added to when just a few years later the Queen Street Centre for Addiction and Mental Health transitioned thousands of additional psychiatric patients into the general public (Slater, 2004).

       The psychiatric patients were not properly taken care of once reaching Parkdale, as their new neighborhoods disproportionately lacked community aftercare programs or facilities (Slater, 2004). By 1981 there were estimated to be around 1,100 discharged psychiatric patients living in South Parkdale that, even by 1985, only had thirty-nine official group homes (Slater, 2004). Group homes are traditionally designed to accommodate the needs of up to ten people; this would leave more than two thirds of the discharged patients to seek out non-supervised housing alternatives that were typically found in rooming houses, unofficial boarding homes, or in the tiny bachelorettes scattered amongst South Parkdale (Slater, 2004). With this influx of psychiatric patients in South Parkdale came the creation and stigmatization of a ‘service-dependent ghetto’ and a ‘little ghetto of misery’ by the popular media, which had they effect of mutating this disadvantaged group into a demonized minority of insane transients who’s presence made the streets unsafe for children to play in (Slater, 2004).

       South Parkdale’s past as an area of poverty and stigmatized social groups had provided low housing prices to middle-class gentrifiers in the late 1980s that sought out older, characteristic neighborhoods within the city (Whitzman & Slater, 2006).

       The 1990s brought pressure to city planners and councilmen as multiple groups of residents expressed their grievances against low-income housing within their neighborhoods (Slater, 2004). Toronto City Council acquiesced to their concerns and in 1996 put in place an interim by-law in South Parkdale against the development or conversion of rooming houses or bachelorettes until a study was conducted on the area (Slater, 2004). The city’s study eventually revealed that low-income residents with marital statuses as single were the principal agents behind the areas social problems (Slater, 2004). The city then proposed to counter this problem by enhancing the number of families to the area, thus diluting the concentrations of singles (Slater, 2004). The first part of the plan put forward in 1997 was a new zoning system, which would prohibit any new developments from dividing the total number of units per lot beyond two (Slater, 2004). The second part of the city’s plan was to investigate the rooming houses and bachelorettes in the area and to enforce stringent health and safety codes and to prosecute and demolish those deemed beyond repair (Slater, 2004).

Explaining gentrification

       Some academics have attempted to explain the gentrification movement within Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s as being the renouncement of the planned suburban landscapes created from the conformist developers of the post-war period (Slater, 2006). The retaking and redeveloping of the city was an effort to be applauded, and further that their actions were a “critical social practice” (pg. 741, Slater, 2006) of a new emerging middle-class intelligentsia that were shaping their own urban experience (Slater, 2006).

       Bridge (2001) views the new middle-class fraction that makes up gentrifiers as being more self-conscious than any bourgeoisie groups before them. These new fractions of the middle-class are very aware of the differences of habitus between themselves and those within higher or lower socio-economic groups (Bridge, 2001). They place aesthetics in very high regard, and pay particular attention to trends of consumption, whether through fashion, dining, or domestic expressions, with public visibility a must in their group’s formation of habitus (Bridge, 2001). Gentrification can be seen as a way for the new middle-class to further express their habitus, using the inner city as the template from which to construct the stage for their class distinction and identity to grow (Bridge, 2001).

       Gentrification for others is seen as an evolution of a city’s superstructure, brought about from economic shifts that have altered the human capital base from which the cities once drew from and functioned through (Redfern, 2003). With these shifts to cities often comes economic growth that, at least partially, will translate itself into the increased abilities of reinvestment in domestic property for individuals, or for cities to make increased residential spaces available from prior uses (industrial, commercial, etc.) later made redundant (Redfern, 2003).

Stages of gentrification

       Gentrification has had multiple stages in its growth throughout the twentieth century (Walks & August, 2008). Up until the end of the 1970s, gentrification had been encouraged and funded by the state through various ‘urban renewal’ schemes that razed targeted inner-city neighborhoods in efforts to unearth their property value potential (Walks & August, 2008). The 1980s saw Canadian municipalities sponsor neighbourhood improvement programs that helped to revive the appearances of inner-city neighborhoods in efforts to attract middle-class gentrifiers (Walks & August, 2008). The current stage of gentrification, ongoing since the 1990s, has been centered around the removal of tenant protections, rezoning and investment in specific districts, and encouraging social mixing, all in efforts to attract the ‘creative class’ (Walks & August, 2008).

       Gentrification changed form at the end of the 1990s as the majority of easily reinvigorated housing stock near central business districts had been converted, and now the focus of investors and developers had to move on and out to surrounding areas (Hackworth & Smith, 2001). These areas of the cities were often riskier investments, containing public housing, mixed-uses, or simply greater distance from the core (Hackworth & Smith, 2001). With such obstacles to work with, gentrification has had to seek assistance from the state to continue on with the gentrification of the city (Hackworth & Smith, 2001).

       The latest stage of gentrification has involved many parties to create the new urban spaces for the returning middle-classes (Smith, 2002). Capital from all over the world flows into investment opportunities for new developments of restaurants, retail, condominiums, and other cultural facilities that will feed the demand of the new middle-classes streaming into the recaptured urban landscape (Smith, 2002). Cities now work more concertedly than ever with private interests to spur job growth, tourism, and an ever increasing population of wealthier citizenry from whom larger taxes can be levied (Smith, 2002). As the world continues to globalize, cities must now become increasingly competitive in their efforts to attract and retain the investments of both human and monetary capital available to them (Smith, 2002).

Mixing rhetoric

       Social mixing has always been associated with gentrification, as many gentrifiers profess a want to live in more socially mixed neighborhoods, as they find it adds to the diversity of an area (Lees, 2008). Furthering this mixing rhetoric has been the government policies of many western nations over the past few years that have promoted the mixing of social classes within inner city neighborhoods as a way to expand the opportunities of the disadvantaged through increased and diversified social networks, and to provide them with positive role models (Lees, 2008).

       There appears to be a large difference between policy and reality, however. Lees’ (2008) findings show that mixing often does not take place between gentrifiers and the lower socio-economic groups who they share their neighborhoods with. Middle-class residents often form new relations through their children’s initial integration with other children in their new communities (Lees, 2008). Lees’ research found that the children of the middle-class subjects observed in her sample showed that the networks of their children remained within their same socio-economic class and further that some educational facilities used by the middle-class gentrifiers often had social class restrictions in their memberships (Lees, 2008).

       Poorer inner city neighborhoods often have public housing projects within their confines, and these have remained as some of the only affordable housing choices for the less fortunate in the ever rising rents of most cities today. However, these public housing projects have been under assault since the 1970s when famous examples such as the Pruitt-Igoe projects were made into archetypes of the failed methodology of high-rise public housing by the media and government (Heathcott, 2012). Examples like Pruitt - Igoe helped spur policy change and a move towards ‘positive’ gentrification; the replacement of public housing projects with mixed-income housing complexes (Lees, 2008). These mixed-housing schemes have displaced many public housing residents over the years, and those that remain do not often mix well with the new market rate residents (Chaskin, 2013). New York City has had a much better experience with their high-rise public housing than other states. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has been proactive in repairing and policing their public housing projects, and unlike most public housing in America, has for decades fought to maintain a balance of incomes within their buildings; this has enabled them to secure higher rents from slightly wealthier tenants to help subsidize the lower rents of the poor (Bloom, 2012). Because of this, NYCHA has not had the same concentrations of poverty found in many other public housing projects (Bloom, 2012). New York City’s public housing strategies may be a way for Toronto to secure the working classes from being pushed out of the city by gentrification, by allowing a widening of income eligibility into public housing. As of 2013, the NYCHA allows a family of four to earn up to $68,700 (NYCHA, 2013).

Experiencing South Parkdale:

{Observations recorded by the author in 2013, during the month of November}

       As you emerge from the Dufferin Street railway underpass, you get your first glimpse of Parkdale. The sidewalks are now filled with a diverse set of citizens; from hipsters and stroller-saddled mothers to what seems like every minority group Toronto has accumulated over the decades, as one of the multicultural capitals of the world. The shops seem just as diverse in their wares; cheap Vietnamese, Indian, and Tibetan restaurants mingle with hipster coffee shops and boutique clothing and vintage emporiums. Convenience stores and discount shops appear to be the highest in abundance, with a steady stream of clientele circulating in and out with their purchases. Unlike the rest of Queen Street, where every other street corner seems to be adorned with a Starbucks coffee shop, in South Parkdale there isn’t a single one in sight. Another segment removed from the area appears to be businessmen; save for the hipster or two sporting skinny black ties, business suits are a very rare sight in South Parkdale.

       As you turn south and meander down the streets between Queen and King your eye is drawn to some of the most beautiful Victorian and Edwardian houses in Toronto, some kept up better than others. Among the houses are a mixture of automobile brands from BMW and Mercedes Benz to beat up, rusting Toyotas and Pontiacs. Renovation companies hammer away at restorations to some of the homes along the tree-lined streets; tools and building materials strewn about the lawns, large dumpsters filled with debris in the driveways, with whole floors being razed or basements unearthed. Amongst the houses, which are often so large it is easy to imagine why so many are made into apartments, there are a sprinkling of low and mid-rise apartment buildings, which for the most part appear to be well kept.

       Turning onto Jameson Avenue your view becomes filled with row after row of mid-rise apartment buildings. Groups of residents congregate and socialize around the entryways, school children racing in and out of the adults, playing games and screaming with laughter. The working-class appear to make up the mixture of residents in the buildings, and there are no traces of luxury cars to be found in the adjacent parking lots.

       As you make your way onto the side streets immediately surrounding the apartment blocks of Jamieson Avenue, one’s view is met with a mixture of the common Victorian mansions of Parkdale, except now there are low-rise apartment buildings intermixed with them that appear to be run down. Residents of these buildings stand around socializing on the porches, howling, laughing, and smoking cigarettes.

       Once night falls on Queen Street, the lineups of hipsters fill the sidewalks, awaiting their entry into one of the many stylish nightclubs lining the block. At the nearby public library a group of men dressed in disheveled clothing are passing around a soda bottle filled with a suspicious dark liquid, sharing stories with each other in their attempts to keep warm from the chill of the night air.

       Walking through Parkdale is both a relaxing and entertaining experience. The overall feel is loose and authentic; the shops seem devoid of commercial marketing, and the people filling the sidewalks appear to care either very little about their dress and appearance or so greatly that it seems it must invade upon their every thought, dictating every decision or action they make. Either way, the whole of Parkdale is a refreshing glimpse of authenticity in a city where H&M uniforms seem to dominate the landscapes of the more interesting and lively neighborhoods of the city.

Conclusion

       In conclusion, the history of South Parkdale from the very beginning has had a constant mixture of residential settings, which have been contested throughout the decades as to the types of people they attract. While the more wealthy residents of South Parkdale have always protested the lower social classes intermixed within the neighborhoods from the abundance of cheap apartments, the city has been unsuccessful in its attempts to support these middle-class families’ concerns with alterations to legislation. The larger picture surrounding gentrification and its whereabouts helps us to understand both the middle-classes and the less wealthy residents of South Parkdale who are at odds with one another in their shared neighborhoods. It appears as though the only real hope for South Parkdale’s original low-income and working class populations is for government policy to act on their behalf in securing a place for them to maintain their lives within neighborhoods they have helped create. It seems as though this is unlikely, as municipal leaders are entrenched in a neoliberal market driven landscape, where every penny added to their coffers counts.

History of the U.S. public housing system

       The following paper will argue that the downfall of public housing is due to the misguided attempts by the United States government to fix the problem of concentrated poverty they helped to form in the first place. Rather than attempting to disperse poverty, the change to neoliberal governance in the latter half of the twentieth century has enabled a new public housing policy that is systematically removing the poor from the city. This occurs under the guise of ‘mixed-income’ rhetoric, and ultimately means to free up the valuable inner-city land for investment opportunities to bolster waning municipal budgets.

        This paper will explore and connect the various underlying circumstances that have come to shape the discussion and subsequent policy enacted by the United States government in its implementation of public housing over the past century. These underlying circumstances are numerous. The first section of this paper will explore the early history of public housing projects and the concentration of poverty that developed in them over time. The second section will examine the Pruitt – Igoe housing project and the implications that would be made from its example. The third section will shed light on the various housing mobility schemes initiated by the US and the results found from their deployment. The fourth section will explore the social mixing arguments espoused and promoted in the latter half of the twentieth century and connect this dialog with the mixed-income housing projects that have come to replace public housing projects. The fifth section will reveal the experiences of a sample of public housing residents as they adjust to mixed-income housing projects. The sixth section will examine the connections of neoliberal governance and gentrification in the latter half of the twentieth century to the public housing debate and its change to mixed-income housing developments. Lastly, the seventh section will present one American city’s experiences with public housing as an example of what is possible for the denounced high-rise project form of public housing.

Introduction

       The beginning of large scale public housing initiatives emerged in the years of The Great Depression, from various New Deal legislated projects, that were to both provide employment as well as affordable housing for the temporarily submerged middle-classes (Goetz, 2011). At first the public housing projects built were filled with households that, while still being low-income, typically had at least one member who was employed (Goetz, 2011). This began to change with time and around the 1960’s new regulations were put forward that gave preference to the absolute neediest, and so non-working welfare recipients began to become an increasing share of the make-up of tenants (Goetz, 2011). As well, between the 1950’s and 1970’s, black Americans became the majority of public housing residents in many major cities due in large part because residential segregation was a widespread phenomenon that excluded black Americans from all but the least attractive areas of cities (Goetz, 2011).

       And so by the 1980’s, with this shift in the make-up of residents that inhabited public housing, consisting of mainly black Americans, many dependent on welfare, the support for these types of housing projects dissipated (Goetz, 2011). With little funding now going into the public housing projects, high-rise buildings became the norm, using cheap materials to achieve maximum cost savings (Goetz, 2011). These buildings would begin to steadily deteriorate physically, and since the locations chosen and designs of projects typically isolated residents from either social or economic opportunities, public housing began to resemble slums from the past (Goetz, 2011). This set in motion a change in policy regarding public housing, and began a movement beginning in the 1980’s for the removal of public housing projects (Goetz, 2011).

Public Housing

       Public housing in the US, as of 2006, was made up of a very small portion of all housing throughout the country, consisting of less than 1%, and constitutes 2.9% of total rental units (Hanlon, 2012). Further, according to statistics from 2006, public housing was largely made up of very low-income residents, with median household incomes at $8,788, 15% of the national average (Hanlon, 2012). This has changed dramatically since 1950, when the median income was 57% of the nationwide average, and then it plummeted to 41% in 1960, followed by another drop to 29% in 1970 (Vale & Freemark, 2012).

       US public housing initiatives have always paled in comparison to Europe. In the Netherlands upwards of 60% of citizens are housed in some form of social housing, Sweden has 20%, and England 18%. At its peak the US managed to provide only 2% of their housing stock as publicly funded, and that was more than 50 years ago (Vale & Freemark, 2012).

       In the 1950’s and 1960’s Civil Rights activists and other proponents of marginalized populations such as visible minorities, the disabled, and the poor, made ground as they successfully convinced legislators that even those whose majority of wages came from welfare deserved a place to live (Vale & Freemark, 2012). This advocacy helped to alter the screening processes once held by public housing authorities, which had originally given priority to two parent working households (Vale & Freemark, 2012).

       This change in public housing admissions was coupled with housing opportunities opening up for black Americans. This group had been confined largely to segregated inner city neighborhoods (Heathcott, 2012b), made up the majority of public housing tenants (Goetz, 2011) and were typically resettled in the public housing projects that were built upon their razed neighborhoods (Massey & Kanaiaupuni, 1993). Through various legislation, areas once dominated by white Americans were opened up, and through succession black Americans who could afford to move out of public housing did, leaving behind increasingly vacant public housing projects (Heathcott, 2012b). With less tenants there were less rents collected that could maintain the buildings, which began a cycle of deterioration, followed by more vacancies which initiated even further decline (Heathcott, 2012b). 

       It is important to note that public housing and the black community in America have historical ties to each other, that has both shaped US public housing policy as well as the tragic outcomes for many black Americans.

       Urban renewal legislation following the end of WW2 enabled elites to direct the public housing projects to be built in predominantly black neighborhoods, razing their neighborhoods to make room for the new buildings (Massey & Kanaiaupuni, 1993). This helped to concentrate poverty in these areas as public housing had mandates to house mainly the very poor (Massey & Kanaiaupuni, 1993). The 1970’s brought on the deindustrialization of cities and sent much employment to the suburbs, leaving behind mainly low-paying service jobs for the minorities who were unable to leave the inner city (Wilson, 1987). With the middle-class blacks able to find employment and housing outside the inner city ghetto’s, those living in public housing were now further placed into poverty; they now had increasingly less decent paying work able to sustain them, if they could find work at all, and many inner city neighborhoods were being deserted by the mixed income households that helped these areas of poverty absorb the shocks caused by economic downturns (Massey & Denton, 1993). Even when Civil Rights battles brought about changes to many discriminatory policies and practices, blacks were still treated differently than whites when it came to public housing. It has been argued that black tenants of public housing have been segregated from whites, primarily those deemed to be elderly, and, further, that blacks have been directed towards the older deteriorated buildings in the collections of public housing stock throughout the US (Goering & Coulibably, 1989).

       Public housing policy in the US consistently enacted new changes to admissions policies, reaching their nexus in the 1970’s and 1980’s, which resulted in making spaces prioritized for the absolute poorest, concentrating the poverty levels of the residents living in public housing (Vale & Freemark, 2012). Both politicians and academics voiced great concern that this would lead to a dangerous situation for public housing (Vale & Freemark, 2012).

       By the 1970’s public housing projects had garnered many critics, from citizens and politicians to architects and academics. The nail in the coffin for public housing projects came in the form of a highly documented and media covered public housing project in St. Louis, Missouri, known as Pruitt-Igoe.

Pruitt-Igoe

       The Pruitt-Igoe public housing project has been often used as the prime example of why public housing in the form of large tower blocks is bound to fail (Heathcott, 2012a). Some criticized the design of the buildings, that it inhibited eyes on the ground with its high-rise structure, which prevented the proper surveillance necessary to curb crime (Heathcott, 2012a). Others blamed the poor selection of tenants that made the projects unmanageable (Heathcott, 2012a). These conclusions were added to with Jane Jacobs’s criticism of high-rise tower blocks with her conclusions that these types of housing were doomed to spawn dangerous, fearful landscapes of anguish and poverty (Heathcott, 2012a). To begin with, Pruit-Igoe had lower crime rates than low-rise neighborhoods elsewhere in St. Louis (Heathcott, 2012a).

       The stage was already set for the failure of Pruitt-Igoe when the economic conditions of the 1950’s set in motion the ‘white flight’ that left the city’s for the suburbs (Heathcott, 2012a). This opened up more housing options for black residents, leaving many vacancies in the Pruitt-Igoe buildings not long after they were constructed (Heathcott, 2012a). The loss of many low-skilled jobs due to firms relocating to cheaper suburban areas, left many residents with little wages able to help pay for the subsidized housing (Freidrichs et al., 2011). With the increasing vacancies came the loss of rents to pay for the maintenance of the buildings, which quickly deteriorated, creating an environment where crime and drugs could easily roam and hide amongst the vacant apartments, eluding the efforts of police as the drug dealers and other criminals saw them coming long before they reached the projects (Freidrichs et al., 2011). And thus, public housing was regarded largely as the failed method to house the poor, and dispersing the concentrated poverty was increasingly viewed and forwarded as the correct solution.

The market-based approach

       After a lawsuit against HUD (The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development) arguing that public housing creation was racially segregated and constructed in only areas of poverty, the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program along with Section 8 housing vouchers were instituted (Gill, 2012). This program was borne after the 1974 Housing and Community Development Act was enacted by Congress, which brought new legislation that promoted rent subsidies for public housing tenants to use in the private housing market (Gill, 2012). The receivers of the housing vouchers in the Gautreaux program were to be assisted in choosing the suburban communities they would move into (Gill, 2012). In all, 7,100 families were distributed over 115 communities, over a twenty-year period (Gill, 2012).

       Amongst the many different experiences of the participants, many cited that the move to the suburbs, which was part of the program’s design – to move the poor closer to the wealth of suburban employment opportunities – made it difficult to commute to jobs, as public transit was poorly established in their new communities (Gill, 2012). Further many participants even gave up trying to look for work because of the long journeys it involved (Gill, 2012). As well, many participants found it challenging to visit friends, shop, or seek medical care, and affordable childcare facilities were found to be greatly lacking in their existence (Gill, 2012). Even when they could reach hospitals, many would present obstacles to accepting the Medicaid provided to the poor families, which caused some participants to make long commutes back to the city to be treated (Gill, 2012). Others faced discrimination in their job hunts, with some observing that they could only find employment in department stores (Gill, 2012).

       The Gautreaux program inspired the creation of the Moving To Opportunity (MTO) program, instituted in 1993 (Gill, 2012). The MTO program was to be a pilot program, based on five cities within the US, that would simultaneously explore the mixing of different socioeconomic classes as it tried to disperse poor families into higher income neighborhoods (Lees, 2008). The program was flawed from the beginning however, as participants were not selected randomly but rather from residents with the highest educational achievement and highest chances of employability (Lees, 2008). The program was deemed a failure by some academics, as it was found that it did not enhance the economic or social opportunities for its participants (Lees, 2008).

       Overall, public housing mobility programs have been linked to higher educational achievements for children, increased perceptions of safety and overall mental health, and reduced the rates of delinquency for many children, particularly girls (Gay, 2012). Boys on the other hand faired worse, and in some cases actually became more likely to participate in delinquent activities (Gay, 2012).

       Other studies have concluded that mobility programs have failed to realize their goals of providing enhanced opportunities by dispersing public housing residents amongst higher socioeconomic neighborhoods (Imbroscio, 2012) citing that while educational achievements may have been found to occur, increased employment opportunities were largely not found to be associated with either MTO or HOPE VI mobility programs (Gay, 2012). Yet some academics feel the programs simply did not go far enough, or rather the residents did not go far enough, that the problem lied with residents not being situated with groups and neighborhoods far enough above the socioeconomic class of their old neighborhoods (Imbroscio, 2012).

       Gill (2012) points out the flawed assumptions surrounding mobility programs, with their emphasis on individual behavior and its attachment to cultural attributes. Focusing narrowly on only the educational or employment achievements of people, and placing immense value on the need for social integration amongst the poor and the middle-class, neglecting to consider the larger narrative surrounding pubic housing’s history, with the institutionally structured barriers brought about by government policy, that have blocked access to education, housing, and employment (Gill, 2012).

Mixing of the classes

       The liberal urban policy of dispersing poverty through dispersal programs has been inspired and pushed forward with the great help of Julius Wilson’s highly acclaimed work in The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), in which he builds a strong case for the creation of an urban underclass. Wilson’s theories set the “underclass” as forming from the concentration of poverty that decades of segregation, institutional disinvestment, and government targeted public housing construction that bulldozed over many black neighborhoods in the post-WW2 period (Wilson, 1987). This concentration of poverty was also due to the working and middle classes leaving the areas, removing the once mixed-income neighborhoods to dissolve into uncontrollable poverty and crime (Wilson, 1987).

       This historical period of concentrating poverty amongst certain inner city areas was mentioned earlier as contributing to the downfall of some public housing structures, only now the history is being used to support the radical remixing of socioeconomic classes, as the majority of these new mixed-income buildings have only a minority of affordable housing.

       Various arguments have been put forward to defend the rationale of social mixing. There is the ‘defending the neighborhood’ claim which argues that higher income households will make neighborhoods in which they live better supported by public resources, because middle-class’ are known to be fierce advocates in these areas (Lees, 2008). Mixed-income schemes are also put forward as better able to support local economies compared with the poverty that can be concentrated in ghettos (Lees, 2008). Yet another way espoused by theorists is that social mixing will bring economic opportunities and bridge the gap between social classes, enabling social networks to form and bonding to take place among neighbors from varying socioeconomic backgrounds (Lees, 2008). These arguments have been argued to be merely a Trojan horse to allow gentrification to take root and purge the area of its prior socioeconomic roots (Lees, 2008).

       Socially segregated groups are known to form very strong communal bonds and support networks, from their shared socioeconomic backgrounds and from their shared experiences inhabiting a neighborhood (Lees, 2008). These same segregated neighborhoods can also provide shelter for disadvantaged minorities in efforts to fend off or deal with the political agendas beyond their control (Lees, 2008). 

       Further, social mix policies can stigmatize and create the effect of ‘othering’ socioeconomic groups below that of the middle-classes, by making people feel that their behaviour or lifestyles are inferior and need to be adapted, that ownership entails respect (Lees, 2008).

       The mobility programs that are often used to mix socioeconomic classes also pose the danger of causing children to form psychological problems and social instability from having to readjust to not only new social groups but also their integration into new schools (Imbroscio, 2012). Studies have found that moving children, whether once or more, contributes to lowered academic achievement, increased disconnection with family members, decreased social circles, and heightened rates of delinquent activity (Imbroscio, 2012).

Mixed-Income Experiences

       Chicago’s Plan for Transformation instituted in 1999, was the largest redevelopment plan for a public housing in the country (Chaskin, 2013).  When Chicago instituted its Plan for Transformation designs of redeveloping targeted public housing buildings and in their place building mixed-income apartments and condominiums, it was met with mixed feelings for returning public housing residents (Chaskin, 2013). The new buildings and adjacent grounds were found to be much cleaner and safer, and an increased sense of regard for the maintenance of the buildings was noticed, all of which provided some with increased peace of mind and lifted aspirations for what they could do with their lives (Chaskin, 2013). However, many felt that with the new middle-class condominium owners came an increased feeling of stigmatization and segregation from the inspection and lifestyle judgments they felt from their new neighbors (Chaskin, 2013).

       Some mixed-income housing projects in Chicago as well as other cities have attempted to mitigate the concerns of the various socioeconomic groups within them, by establishing forums or events for neighbors to meet and discuss their thoughts and concerns (Chaskin, 2013). Though it appears these efforts are mainly attended by the public housing inhabitants, as these types of meetings come with an attached stigma of social services and further that these meetings are meant for a certain group of people only (Chaskin, 2013). One example of this is the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS), which began in 1993 (Chaskin, 2013). The intent of the forum was to allow for a wide range of residents to work together in coming up with solutions and proposals for the policing and securing of the areas in which the residents shared (Chaskin, 2013). The outcome often was that blame was cast on the public housing residents, so rather than acting as mechanism for community cohesion, the forum amplified differences felt within the two groups (Chaskin, 2013).

Dwindling allocations for the poor: HOPE VI

       In 1996, the historic policy of housing authorities to replace every unit destroyed with a new one was overturned (Hanlon, 2010). This has allowed more units to be built at market prices (Hanlon, 2010). This was added to by relaxing the income requirements set forth by public housing authorities to allow for a wider range in the HOPE VI buildings (Hanlon, 2010). These two provisions have promoted a greater mix of incomes within the new buildings, but have also meant that there are fewer units as a result for the low-income residents who once lived in the old buildings (Hanlon, 2010). Those who are displaced are given vouchers to find housing and to disperse from the area, hopefully integrating with a new community that is less stricken with poverty and crime, as all such mobility programs put forward as part of their mission (Hanlon, 2010). The Hope VI program had destroyed 63,000 housing units, rehabilitating a further 20,300 by the end of 2004 (Lees, 2008).

       Studies on the HOPE VI program have found that only half the funding has gone into creating affordable housing, and further that only half of the residents displaced from the destruction of public housing due to HOPE VI projects have been provided for with replacement units (Hackworth, 2007).

       Critics argue that instead of bringing rehabilitation to the dilapidated neighborhoods, the Hope VI program slashed the number of affordable units available, and also caused the swift rise in all other units (Lees, 2008). These same critics state that public housing redevelopment policy in the US is structured to relocate the downtrodden away from the valuable inner city land that is in demand by affluent groups who wish to live there (Lees, 2008).

       The demolishing of public housing and vouchering out the residents has caused not only a decreasing amount of options for the poor, but also increased risk of homelessness, as they now are forced to compete in the market place for housing (Gill, 2012). The turn to the constructing of mixed-income housing has also been shown to spur on gentrification in the areas surrounding them (Fraser & Kick, 2007).

Neoliberal gentrification

       The late 1990’s saw much more direct government involvement with real estate developers, in efforts to facilitate growth within cities to generate increased tax revenues (Hackworth, 2007).

       Gentrification is often put forward as a way for cities to reduce their concentrations of poverty within areas of the inner city, and further represents fiscal responsibility for municipalities (Lees, 2008) who have been pressured to increase their revenues from the loss of federal funding over the past few decades, leaving them to rely increasingly on property taxes (FCM, 2012). Municipalities have also turned increasing to generating revenues collected from sales taxes and fees derived from various development schemes, which have pushed for the replacing of public housing projects with sports arenas, recreational and entertainment venues, besides the typical mixed-income housing projects and commercial developments (Kamel, 2012). Neoliberal urban policies have intertwined and gained momentum alongside gentrification, cleansing and securing cities for the capital investments of both developers and the middle-classes they target (Lehrer & Wieditz, 2009).

       Mixed-income housing projects, together with the gentrifying forces they help to promote, pose possible challenges for the communities they inject themselves into by altering the political needs of the low-income residents (Lehrer & Wieditz, 2009). While social services may be a concern for the old low-income residents, new condo owners may see their needs better met with increased funding for policing of their new neighborhoods (Lehrer & Wieditz, 2009). The commercial needs of the low-income residents similarly is challenged when middle-class budgets and tastes stimulate the erection of stores catering to their needs, driving out the older stores that supported the now dwindling population of less wealthy shoppers (Lehrer & Wieditz, 2009).

       Before concluding this exploration of the United States’ experience with public housing, it seems poignant to shed light on how one city in the US has dealt with its less fortunate citizens in their housing needs.

New York City

       New York City’s experience with public housing shows that high-rise structures are not in themselves doomed to fail, or that public housing itself need be thought of as outdated or the wrong redress for the less fortunate of means. To begin with, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which manages and operates the public housing within the city, contains the largest amount of public housing in the US at 10% (Bloom, 2012).

       The extensive, low cost, subway system of New York City has helped public housing residents reach employment, even as many low-skilled jobs left the inner city, which helped to also keep the projects attractive to those who might otherwise have vacated them when poverty was enhanced in the inner city in the decades following WW2 (Bloom, 2012).

       New York City faced the same debilitating circumstances of other major cities, with escalating crime rates, white flight, deindustrialization, and withering subsidies from the federal government, all leading to enhanced concentrations of poverty (Bloom, 2012). New York City also built a majority of the same high-rise, superblock projects that other cities had constructed (Bloom, 2012).

       New York City differed from other cities in that it effectively lobbied to have their public housing program open to a wider range of incomes (Bloom, 2012). This has enabled it to have a mix of residents containing 47% of apartments with at least one working adult, with 41% receiving veteran’s benefits, pensions, disability, or social security (Bloom, 2012). Only 11% of public housing residents are on welfare (Bloom, 2012).

       The mass exodus of white residents had reduced the white majority of tenants, and by 1962 their numbers fell to 42.7%, which was reduced again by 1969 to only 27.9% (Bloom, 2012). This left the majority of tenants to now be represented by black Americans at 46.2% (Bloom, 2012). Over the decades political pressure has forced the NYCHA to take in more welfare dependent tenants, they countered this by actively seeking out working families to balance the social classes within their buildings (Bloom, 2012).

       The NYCHA from the outset had been committed to building and maintaining its public housing to a high standard (Bloom, 2012). Even with the prevalent vandalism and high crime rate experienced by New York City in the later half of the twentieth century, the massive staff, recruited often from the projects themselves, kept up repairs and maintained the grounds from becoming deteriorated (Bloom, 2012). The constant work done on the buildings also contributed to more eyes on the housing projects (Bloom, 2012). The security of the housing projects was of utmost concern to the NYCHA as it formed the largest public housing policing force, with over 1500 officers at its peak, performing vertical patrols of the buildings (Bloom, 2012).

       The sites surrounding the public housing projects have been added to over the years and now contain community facilities, recreation zones, and playground equipment that have been regarded as being of an even higher level than those of private apartment buildings (Bloom, 2012).

       In the 1990’s the NYCHA created the Working Family Preference initiative, which allocated half of all newly vacant apartments to families with at least one working member (Bloom, 2012). This policy went hand in hand with resurrected eviction processes that did not lead to many vacancies, but did help to reinforce the message that failing to pay rent and social disregard for the inhabitants of the buildings were not going to be tolerated (Bloom, 2012).

       To combat the reduced funding allocated by federal budgets, the NYCHA has raised rents on higher income residents, rather than cut back maintenance or security (Bloom, 2012). With the wider range of income classes in their buildings this was made possible (Bloom, 2012). Currently the maximum income eligibility for a family of four is $68,700 (NYCHA, 2013).  Despite the Working Family Preference and relatively low amount of tenants on welfare, the NYCHA buildings still act as housing to aid the poor, which is represented by the average family income of households being $23,000, which is below the New York City poverty line at $26,138 (Bloom, 2012).

       New York City has shown that as well as providing an example of what public housing can be, it has further demonstrated that the Neoliberal policy changes to public housing can be challenged, as the NYCHA has largely resisted the destruction of its public housing projects, shedding less than 1% as of 2010 (Goetz, 2011).

       New York City’s example of public housing may show that public housing projects of old are worth fighting for, however it has become increasingly challenging for movements to get a foothold. Though there has been progress made by protesting the policies surrounding the destruction of public housing projects, particularly in New York City, efforts have often been stymied through the creation of multiple barriers for the soon to be displaced residents (Hackworth, 2007). Many have been given housing vouchers, which often move them great distances from the areas of protest as well as separates them from any group efforts (Hackworth, 2007). Further, many residents who have been allocated a unit in the new mixed-income housing projects choose to not join protest movements for fear of losing their new apartments (Hackworth, 2007).

Conclusion

       In conclusion, public housing has faced many challenges since its inception. There is little doubt that the dwindling funds allocated by the federal government to public housing over the years has had a major impact on its outcome. This paper has tried to bring to light and connect the other circumstances faced by public housing over its life that have been misunderstood or hidden from plain view. The concentration of poverty that has accumulated over the decades through changing admissions policies has brought a few public housing projects into extreme decay. The media brought this segment of the public housing projects’ stock onto center stage and provided the cover for the federal government to change the form of public housing; thus, these few crumbling projects of poverty were made by the media and planners into the archetype of a failed methodology to house the poor.

       Mobility programs were put forth as the solution to dilute the poverty that had been concentrated in the public housing projects. The mobility programs received mix results, but this was enough to push further for the destruction of public housing projects through the mixed-income housing projects that would raze the prior public housing projects. The razing of the public housing projects was a sad reminder of what had been done to the poor neighborhoods that had stood before them.

       The move to a market based approach coincided with a similar shift in government, as neoliberal policies began to dominate cities and guide their restructuring process in opening up valuable real estate within the city. These new housing developments would generate fees for the cash starved municipalities and provide a larger tax base from which to secure revenues from their dwindling budgets.

       New York City’s example of public housing projects has brought to light what could be the solution for public housing. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) did at least two key things that likely enabled their success. The first was rigorously championing the mixed incomes of its residents, which provided higher rents to help pay the costs from lower income families in the public housing projects, and as many academics have proposed, provided role-models for upward social mobility. The difference here is that the degree of mixture does not appear to be that severe, compared with typical mixed-income housing projects attempting to bring together socioeconomic groups that are vastly different, compounded by establishing the vulnerable public housing residents as a minority within the tenant structure of housing projects.                                      

       The second thing the NYCHA did was to stay vigilante in the maintenance and policing of its public housing projects. The NYCHA was also fortunate to have access to one of the best public transit systems in the world, which has helped to make employment more accessible for public housing residents.

       New York City’s experiences with public housing would suggest that moderation of socioeconomic class mixing, access to good public transit, and the maintenance and securing of living spaces should all be key considerations when determining how best to deal with society’s less fortunate. Moreover, high-rise public housing projects may again be the answer for public housing, as cities are becoming increasingly difficult to find affordable housing in, with current land values reaching exorbitant new heights. Individuals and families experiencing poverty need to be in cities to enable social and economic connections - not stranded and isolated in the suburbs with limited opportunity for connections.

History of segregated housing in the U.S.

       Segregated black enclaves existed before the Second World War, but the size and concentration of poverty held within them had never come close to the levels reached in the following decades after the war ended (Massey & Denton, 1993). This paper will argue that both the federal and local level of the United States government was responsible for the massive increase in racial segregation and ghetto development that was brought about after WWII in the American metropolis. The government’s actions were largely carried through by inciting feelings of territoriality and increased social distance felt by the majority of white citizens towards blacks.

       Social interaction consists generally of the interactions that take place between people, whether they include members of a family (primary relationships) or individuals that have joined together to promote a shared endeavor (Knox, 1994). The concept is further broken down more specifically into “expressive” categories (recreational or volunteer activities) and “instrumental” categories (business or political activities), which can also be represented together (cultural or religious activities) (Knox, 1994). This concept of social interaction goes on to form the concept of social distance (Knox, 1994). Social interactions feed into and help form the opinions and subsequent inclinations of individuals or groups as to how close they will allow members of other groups to enter their lives (i.e. neighbours or marriage partners) (Knox, 1994). Lastly the concept of territoriality is the function of one’s neighbourhood or area to act as the symbolic structure with which the majority of members can band together in their efforts to control the social interactions that take place within it (Knox, 1994). This collective force can then be used to foment action within the group (Knox, 1994).

       Beginning in the late 1930’s and throughout the 1940’s, various levels of government interceded in the promotion and influence over residential segregation. The Great Depression of 1929 had left many in the United States in precarious housing situations and without work (Massey & Denton, 1993). The Federal government’s solution to these social ills came in the form of legislation that saw the creation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) (Massey & Denton, 1993). The HOLC was created in 1933 to spur on home ownership, the construction and rehabilitation of the nations housing supply, and to provide jobs through stimulating demand in the construction industry (Massey & Denton, 1993). Funds were made available to offer low-interest loans and refinancing options to those whom had either lost their homes through foreclosure, or those who were at risk (Massey & Denton, 1993). The HOLC had initiated a rating system to determine which areas were risky investments and not deemed eligible for the loans (Massey & Denton, 1993). These “redlined” areas, as they were referred to, represented mixed race neighbourhoods, but most of the areas were those that specifically contained blacks (Massey & Denton, 1993). The HOLC specifically mentions the association with blacks and their effect on lowering real estate values (Massey & Denton, 1993). The HOLC set in place the institutionalization of disinvestment for black inner city neighbourhoods as banks and other mortgage brokers continued to use the redlined maps made by the HOLC (Massey & Denton, 1993).

       The Federal government continued with its residential initiatives by introducing the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veteran’s Administration (VA) (Massey & Denton, 1993). They were created in 1937 and 1944 respectively, to back the loans of banks to homeowners, which caused the required down payments to shrink from the typical 33% to 10% (Massey & Denton, 1993). The two administrations also made the monthly payments much more affordable by lengthening the repayment periods to upwards of 30 years (Massey & Denton, 1993). On top of this, because of the security provided by the programs banks were put at ease and interest rates came down considerably (Massey & Denton, 1993). With this great power over newly enfranchised homeowners came the two administrations preference for the suburbs, as only new homes garnered the full potential funds from the administrations, and those seeking to upgrade their homes received much less financing and much shorter repayment periods (Massey & Denton, 1993). Areas were also examined as to the racial composition and proximity to other homes, which largely excluded any inner city neighbourhoods especially those that contained black families (Massey & Denton, 1993). The use of the FHA was so prevalent in America during the 1940’s that more than half of all homes (60%) purchased during this period used its financing, with non-white candidates receiving less than two percent of the loans (McGrew, 1997).

       This led to the drastic lowering of property values in those areas because of the near impossibility for owners to sell their homes or to rehabilitate them, both of which greatly helped in the deterioration of inner city black neighbourhoods (Massey & Denton, 1993). The federal government not only showed that they collectively felt a great enough social distance from blacks that they felt justified to prevent them from living near other whites, but their attitudes and actions influenced the larger white population into adopting the same feelings, which would be evident in the governemnt’s schemes of ‘urban renewal’ that were to follow.

       After the federal government laid the groundwork for segregated investment and disinvestment, the local level of government took the reins and finished the job of inner city residential segregation. By implementing ‘urban renewal’ schemes, the segregated black community was once again struck a blow by the state (Massey & Denton, 1993). The urban renewal plans largely targeted black areas that encroached on prized land that white residents and businessmen had wanted to protect from racial mixing (Massey & Denton, 1993). One example of this is the Cincinnati Metropolitan master plan in 1948 (Casey-Leininger, 1993). It had a component in it that was to see the demolition of a large section of housing cleared where the makeup consisted largely of black residents, an area that the city deemed as slums (Casey-Leininger, 1993). The city proposed to relocate those living there to other housing arrangements, which included the construction of new public housing to provide for those who couldn’t afford private housing, and also private builders were to build single-family homes at low cost and subsidized by the government (Casey-Leininger, 1993). Both types of proposed housing failed to deliver enough space to adequately house the thousands that were displaced, with little of the proposed public housing ever being constructed and the private developers pricing their stock out of the reach of all but the middle-class (Casey-Leininger, 1993). The result was that the public housing that was built was quickly filled beyond capacity with black families, and subsequently the black poverty was further concentrated (Casey-Leininger, 1993). Other public housing that would be constructed later would begin to be outright designated by the city as for blacks only, as a continual push for segregation went hand in hand with concentrating the poverty held within (Casey-Leininger, 1993). Cincinnati was not alone in these ‘urban renewal’ schemes, as many cities in the Midwest and Northeast experienced them, the prevailing outcomes being further concentration of black poverty (Massey & Denton, 1993).

       The actions by the government instilled many white residents with the notion that blacks were irresponsible, lazy, and incapable of rearing their offspring or maintaining a home (McGrew, 1997). They further felt that black neighbors would erode the values of homes and bring a dangerous element to their safe streets (McGrew, 1997). These feelings would translate into an increased feeling of social distance felt for blacks, as they felt they did not deem them worthy to be their neighbors (McGrew, 1997). It was with this mentality that white residents who, for whatever reasons, able to leave for a new life in the suburbs showed feelings of territoriality as they felt control over their neighbourhoods threatened by incoming black families who were an unknown presence before this (Hirsch, 1983). In their efforts to keep control over their streets, in what they perceived to be a fight to save their neighbourhoods from becoming ghettos, many neighbors joined together to form groups to defend their properties in front of city council from having new housing projects developed near them (Hirsch, 1983), which helped to further segregate the black community and further concentrate the poverty of the black ghettos, as housing projects continually were constructed only in black areas of the city (Massey & Denton, 1993).

       This mentality towards blacks left little choice for middle and upper class black families but to remain in the segregated, neglected ghettos (Massey & Denton, 1993). Though blacks had been previously known to live in more class mixed areas than their white counterparts, it appears that the social distance between them had become too large to bear with the increased concentration of poverty that the government housing policies had pushed on to the black ghettos (Massey & Denton, 1993). The suburbs were viewed as a way out, except that the flight of upper class blacks further pushed the inner city black ghettos into poverty (Wilson, 1990).

       The Suburbs

       The suburbs were newly created places where returning veterans were welcomed with no money down mortgages arranged by the VA, but the invitation only extended to whites. Blacks faced exclusion from the VA’s loans, but the federal government went even further to bar their entry into the white dominated areas in the form of racially restrictive covenants, required on all suburban homes that used the FHA to financially back them (McGrew, 1997). Similar to the redlining precedent that established widespread adoption by private companies, the restrictive covenants became standard issue for much of America’s suburban housing developments (McGrew, 1997). Again the federal government’s feelings of a great social distance between whites and blacks created policies that again attempted to segregate the black community, and also caused the larger suburban white society to adopt the same feelings between blacks and themselves (McGrew, 1997).

       Despite these immense barriers set against them, some middle and upper class blacks still managed to break through. These white dominated areas were clearly important places for many black families as Weise (2006) showed that the suburbs represented a place where black middle and upper class families could distance themselves from those blacks lower on the social ladder. These black families felt a large enough social distance from other blacks that they did not feel they were respectable enough to be living in the same areas as them (Wiese, 2006). Things such as safe streets for their children to play on, and “civic associations, women’s clubs, Boy Scouts troops, and Saturday night pinochle games...lavish lawn parties and hearty cocktail sessions in pine walled rumpus rooms” were all social interactions that middle and upper class black families wanted in their lives, as well being activities they felt their high social status demanded (Wiese, 2006, pg.106). These expressive social interactions, and attitude of entitlement, would help to form the perceived social distance from those who did not participate in such activities - like those stuck in poverty within the ghetto (Wiese, 2006).

       Because acceptance by the dominant white families involved in the recreational activities surrounding the suburbs often excluded those of colour - displaying a continued feeling of large social distance felt between the two races - black families looked inwards for social interaction (Wiese, 2006). Black families made their homes places where primary and secondary relations could congregate for both expressive and instrumental social interactions, hosting such things as “professional groups, church groups, wives’ clubs, bridge clubs,” (Wiese, 2006, pg. 113). The federal government had done enough damage to the perceived social distance between blacks and whites that even among their own social classes, the majority of black families sought suburban homes in areas with a black presence already established, as whites had been known to harass black families new to white neighbourhoods (Wiese, 2006). This shows their increased sense of territoriality, similar to their urban counterparts, in efforts to protect their neighbourhoods from the perceived threat of blacks, instigated by the government’s policies and actions.

       To conclude, through the creation of the HOLC, FHA, and the VA, investment was steered, supported and subsidized towards newly constructed suburbs, and not made available to the inner city residential areas. Practices of redlining, initiated by the government agencies, influenced the banking community and caused the massive depreciation of inner city housing stock. This in turn caused the white population to leave en mass to the suburbs, leaving the large majority of black residents to live in increasing conditions of poverty. The majority of whites then began to associate the black population with poverty and vice, thus stimulating the social distance felt towards them. These feelings of a large social distance felt by whites towards blacks spurred on feelings of territoriality, which helped to guide the urban renewal schemes carried out by the local city governments. These actions further concentrated the poverty of the black ghettos into public housing, and further degraded other neighbourhoods that became part of the increasing black ghetto. The plight of the inner city black ghettos was then furthered with the removal of wealthier black families, as they increasingly wished to separate themselves from those in lower social standing, caused by the increasing social distance they felt towards them. The suburbs then became another segregated residential area for blacks as the government established and enforced practices of restrictive covenants that influenced the majority of industry to adopt them as well. These government actions caused black families to be restricted once again to where they could chose to live. As well, the government’s previous policies, and the new ones established for the suburbs, influenced the white residents into the continued feeling of a large social distance felt for the black community, and feelings of territoriality in what they perceived to be a fight to protect their white neighborhoods.