Week 8 Post 2

 Week 8 Post 2- Formal Synthesis

    There were several strategies used by various U.S. cities to segregate neighborhoods while avoiding explicit anti-segregation legislation. There are many examples of strategies used by various U.S cities to continue to segregate their neighborhoods while evading anti-segregation legislation. The chapter began with a continuation of a story that began the book, of black Ford plant workers in northern California and their struggle to find fair housing. The suburb of Milpitas had been constructed for white Ford workers, but of course, being sponsored by the FHA, was whites only. An up-and-coming businesses man decided he wanted to create an integrated community in the Santa Clara County for people of color working at the Ford plant. When board members discovered this, the developer was met with incredible amounts of backlash, and had to fight every loophole city officials jumped through to try and prevent his development from being built. Eventually, the FHA agreed to assist financially only if the community was built as a co-owned cooperative, and not individual houses being owned. But by the time this compromise was reached, housing prices in the neighborhood had skyrocketed due to all the additional work needed, and the development was not affordable for Ford workers of color, so the attempt at integration in the midst of all white suburbs failed. 

    One of the main focuses of this chapter was the different local segregation methods that were technically not actual segregation legislation. One of the De Facto methods of segregation was to attempt to buy properties from black families moving into all white neighborhoods for inflated prices, giving them incentive to leave. When legal action was taken by African Americans who felt like they were being segregated against, their cases would be so extended by the courts that by the time a decision was reached, the environment was so uneasy for black families that most of them would've been chased out already. From these types of situations, we get the quote, 'Justice delayed is justice denied'. A strategy used on the national level was to demolish working-class poor black neighborhoods under the guise of creating the interstate highway system. These projects became an easy way for developers to move poor black people out of their cities and into even poorer segregated communities. The phrases 'blight' and 'slum' became euphemisms for poor black neighborhoods. The Eisenhower administration, who advised this project, made no requirements for cities to create housing for those who would be displaced by highways. Another strategy used by many cities, especially in the south, came from constructing public schools. In Austin, the city built their whites-only school in the neighborhood they wanted to be whites-only, and built a new black-only school in a neighborhood which they wished to relocate all African Americans in the city to. Although both schools had the same budget being built, no money was allocated for continued maintenance of the black school as it was for the white-only school. Because the Austin schools offered no transportation for children of black families, the families were forced to relocate to the neighborhood of the black only school, which was then neglected by public services and left to become detiorated. This happened in cities across the south and midwest, a perfect example of how segregation was completely possible even with anti-segregation laws in place, creating a culture of racial divide that still exists in certain forms in our country.