by 
I’ve
been
a
big
fan
of
Alan
Mallach
of
the
Center
for
Community
Progress
for
years.
I
first
met
him
at
a
Cleveland
Fed
conference
in
Cincinnati
in
2017,
and
later
interviewed
him
at
the
University
of
Chicago’s
Harris
School
of
Public
Policy
regarding
his
book
The
Divided
City:
Poverty
and
Prosperity
in
Urban
America.
I’m
grateful
to
have
him
as
a
regular
reader
of
this
newsletter.
And,
since
he
said
I
could
use
this
quote
as
a
blurb,
let
me
add
that
via
email
he
said
the
Corner
Side
Yard
is
“consistently
interesting
and
often
thought-provoking.”
Thanks!
Anyway,
he
reached
out
to
me
last
week
after
I’d
written
about
the
lack
of
research
on
Rust
Belt-to-Sun
Belt
migration
in
America,
and
its
impact.
He
noted,
quite
correctly
in
my
opinion,
that
there’s
also
been
little
research
on
white
flight
as
well
–
the
migration
of
whites
from
cities
to
suburbs
throughout
the
latter
half
of
the
20th
century,
while
a
major
influx
of
Blacks
into
Northern
cities
was
also
taking
place.
In
his
email,
he
said
that
“from
a
social/cultural
perspective,
it’s
clearly
problematic,
and
thus
not
an
acceptable
topic
for
research.
The
fact
remains
that,
in
round
numbers,
while
the
Great
Migration
led
to
5
million
Black
people
moving
to
northern
cities,
simultaneously
15
million
white
people
left
those
cities.”
(Note:
this
is
something
I
first
saw
documented
in
an
academic
paper
by
Leah
Platt
Boustan
published
in
2007).
“White
flight”
all
along
Mallach
wrote
and
published
his
own
academic
paper
last
year
on
a
similar
topic.
Mallach’s
paper
entitled
Shifting
the
Redlining
Paradigm:
The
Home
Owners’
Loan
Corporation
Maps
and
the
Construction
of
Urban
Racial
Inequality
resulted
in
some
fascinating
findings.
From
his
paper
abstract:
“While
it
is
important
to
recognize
the
racist
roots
of
contemporary
urban
conditions
and
Black
disadvantage,
the
focus
on
the
HOLC
redlining
maps
of
the
late
1930s,
which
have
become
a
staple
of
both
research
and
popular
literature,
is
misplaced.
Despite
statistical
associations
between
the
maps
and
contemporary
measures
of
racialized
disadvantage,
extensive
research
has
found
no
evidence
to
support
a
connection
between
them.
Instead,
the
Second
Great
Migration
and
white
flight,
both
acting
in
the
context
of
the
exclusion
of
Black
buyers
from
the
growing
suburbs,
led
to
the
spatial
and
economic
bifurcation
of
urban
Black
populations
within
cities
and
the
reconfiguration
of
the
formerly
predominately
white
ethnic
redlined
areas
as
segregated
areas
of
concentrated
Black
poverty.”
In
other
words,
redlining
didn’t
segregate
American
cities.
White
flight,
fed
by
the
Second
Great
Migration
that
brought
millions
of
Black
people
to
Northern
cities
between
1940-1970,
did.
White
flight
perhaps
wasn’t
always
racist
in
its
intent,
but
it
was
definitely
racist
in
its
practice.
That’s
too
bad,
because
redlining,
and
a
whole
host
of
other
policies,
did
a
lot
of
heavy
lifting
in
the
2010s
to
describe
racial
inequality.
Turns
out
America
didn’t
need
a
racist
federal
policy
to
resegregate
Northern
cities;
it
just
needed
an
economy
in
need
of
workers,
and
a
housing
development
industry
finally
willing
accommodate
the
needs
of
a
housing-starved
public.
Sound
familiar?
Mallach
says
that
the
Home
Owners’
Loan
Corporation’s
“residential
security”
maps,
developed
between
1935
and
1940,
assessed
sections
of
cities
on
a
scale
of
A
to
D,
with
associated
color
codes:
A
(green,
meaning
excellent
residential
security),
B
(blue,
for
good
residential
security),
C
(yellow,
for
fair
residential
security)
and
D
(red,
indicating
poor
residential
security).
Neighborhoods
with
higher
grades
were
deemed
safer
for
bank
investments;
lower
grades
were
considered
“hazardous”.
Read
the
rest
of
this
piece
at
The
Corner
Side
Yard.
Pete
Saunders
is
a
writer
and
researcher
whose
work
focuses
on
urbanism
and
public
policy.
Pete
has
been
the
editor/publisher
of
the
Corner
Side
Yard,
an
urbanist
blog,
since
2012.
Pete
is
also
an
urban
affairs
contributor
to
Forbes
Magazine’s
online
platform.
Pete’s
writings
have
been
published
widely
in
traditional
and
internet
media
outlets,
including
the
feature
article
in
the
December
2018
issue
of
Planning
Magazine.
Pete
has
more
than
twenty
years’
experience
in
planning,
economic
development,
and
community
development,
with
stops
in
the
public,
private
and
non-profit
sectors.
He
lives
in
Chicago.
Photo:
A
map
showing
Black
and
Latino
segregation
in
the
nation’s
100
largest
metro
areas
in
2010.
Source:
https://metroplanning.org/the-cost-of-segregation-2/
Go to Source
Author: Pete Saunders
