Discrimination in Housing in 1950’s Essay

â€Å"Minorities experienced racism in suburbia in the 1950’s. †(Kruse) Through the postwar, government started developing on highways, housing, and others so on. FHA (Federal Housing Administration) started to build big, nice houses in outside of the city area. Which is now called â€Å"Suburbia†. The main idea of suburbia was having bigger house without lots of money, better social community and nice neighborhood. â€Å"Better housing and jobs, cheap consumer credit, safe and healthy neighborhoods, and good public services and schools. †(Kruse) This idea boomed and Suburbia became popular and got rushed by people. For selling more houses and to make profits their business with big companies, FHA made loaning program. Thru people could be able to buy a house without having money. But meanwhile, FHA had discrimination. They only loan the money to the white. â€Å"Federal government denied most racial minorities access not only to suburbia but also to the many benefits of homeownership. Their goal was to make exclusivity for white. Almost exclusively for white people. †(Kruse) They did not sell the houses to any other minorities even some of them had enough money to buy. To build highways, and houses, in somewhere had to be destroyed for developments. Of course the targets were places where minorities were living in. While suburbia and outside of city were getting developed, the urban area was quickly getting decayed. All minorities were stuck and living in dirty poverty in city. Since that was the government’s act, minorities did not have really anything to do. All they did was protesting, but nothing really influenced changing. But somehow, federal governments felt guilty and removed the discrimination act officially, but there was still segregation going on in individual person’s inside. By the fact, federal governments decided to rebuild urban area. And minorities were able to live in much better conditions. Suburbia mostly started to develop in 1950’s. After world war2, a lot of immigrants kept coming to America and cities were getting packed. People wanted to have better life, better society, and better community. People were sick and tired of city living. A lot of dirty areas in everywhere, small living condition, high taxes crowded by cars, people and danger living. â€Å"People were seeking to remove themselves from the heavy concentration of new immigrant population in the central cities. (Palen) People wanted to get out of the city but not too far away, not to the farms, countryside. Therefore government started to consider and develop some places for them. Suburbia was created to solve this problem, and to satisfy people with their Living. â€Å"It processes something both of the countryside and of the city† (Edwards). For an example, Levitt town was created by Abraham Levitt. Federal government and big businesses cooperated each other to built this big project. Federal government spend a lot of efforts and money as you see â€Å"The modern American suburb is heavily indebted to the federal government. For decades writers have chronicled this debt, documenting how state policy fueled the rapid suburban growth that has so decisively shaped U. S. politics and culture since world war2. Federal Spending priorities, mortgage programs, tax incentives, urban renewal, and a host of other public initiatives fundamentally reshaped the metropolis. †(Kruse) The first new suburbia in United State was Levittown . It is located in Long island, New York. â€Å"Levittown gets its name from its builder, the firm of Levitt & Sons, Inc. , which built it as a planned community between 1947 and 1951. Levittown was the first truly mass-produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the country. Levitt and Sons built the community with an eye towards speed, efficiency and cost-effective construction, which methods led to a production rate of 30 houses a day by July of 1948. The planned 2,000 home rental community was quickly successful, with New York Herald Tribune reporting that half of the properties had been rented within two days of the community being announced on May 7, 1947. As demand continued, exceeding availability, the Levitts expanded their project with 4,000 more homes as well as community services, including schools and postal delivery. After thousands of thousands houses built up, federal housing association (FHA) created mortgage program for sell houses. And FHA started loan the money to people. It decisively helped sell all the houses. FHA standardized the long-term, low-interest home mortgage and facilitated its use nationwide. †(Kruse) Thru people who do not have enough money to buy a house, they were still able to buy a house. Also most houses in suburb was not expensive and was worth it comparing to small, dirty, dangerous condition houses in the city. After built houses, and sold houses, government and big businesses started build highways which connect from city to suburbia. And started build public convenient such as high schools, libraries, YMCA for better society and community. With valuable price, bigger house condition, better community, and loaning mortgage program by FHA, suburbia houses got boomed. When people got out of the city and moved to suburbia, most of them were white. The reason why they moved out to suburbia was that not only they wanted have bigger house, fresh areas but also they wanted to have better society and community. Which represents that they wanted have their own ethnic society. Indeed, most of people who moved out to suburbia were white. They have felt dangerous in the city because there was a lot mixed ethnic groups in the city. Therefore they loathed city life. Since they moved out to suburbia, they did not want any other ethnic groups or people come and live in suburbia. They only wanted white neighborhood. Thru suburbia became exclusive living area only for white. By becoming exclusive area, FHA helped a lot to make this happening. Thru it accentuated the nations racial and class inequalities. For example, FHA denied most racial minorities’ access to suburbia and also to the many benefits of homeownership, loaning money to minorities, and even did not sell the house to minorities who had enough money to buy a house in suburbia. FHA operation systematically discriminated by race. FHA agency endorsed the use of race-restrictive covenants until 1950. And they followed the appraisal guideline outlined in the FHA’s underwriting Manual, which prohibited realtors(and by extension, lenders, and builders) from introducing â€Å"incompatible† racial groups into white residential enslaves. If a neighborhood is to retain stability. †(Kruse). Therefore meanwhile suburbia was growing up and up, city was going to downhill. Because all city polices also moved out to suburbia followed to white people. Federal government neglected urban area. After world war 2, federal, state, and local governments abandoned flexible and sensible urban planning and replaced it with restrictive, isolating, community-destructive zoning. † (Morris). Finally urban areas became ghetto; some parts of neighborhoods became very dangerous. People lose their job since the city is getting decayed. By not making money, people gets poorer and moved to compact place such as public housing. People start dealing drug in small area, it causes crimes, and the government neglected it. As an example of apartment residents by high percentage of black people is â€Å"Robert Taylor Homes†. It is located in Bronzeville, south side of Chicago. â€Å"It is largest public housing in Chicago and the nation with 4,415 apartments. † (Lindstrom). Over 96% of residents are African American, and at one point 95% of residents were unemployed. â€Å"Bronzeville’s public housing is extremely dilapidated and controlled by gangs. Entering public housing means stepping into the middle of the drug trade. Gang members monitor the outside of the buildings and sell illicit substances, calling out drug code phrases like â€Å"ghost face† and â€Å"dog face† from first-floor hallways. The unlawful activity makes public housing quite intimidating and dangerous, especially when turf wars, which often involve gunfire, break out. † (Hyra) All minorities’ communities converged into city. Some minorities got really racial attacked by a big business company’s project. As an example, when Walker O’ Malley constructed dodger stadium nearly by highway in Los Angeles, he bulldozed out all the houses, village which were at the ground before stadium constructed. And of course all residents who lived at there were Mexicans. The highway engineer did not hesitate to lay waste to woods, streams, parks, and human neighborhoods† (Morris) â€Å"-L. A. city council decided in 1949 that the area was â€Å"blighted† infected with poverty and dismal living condition three years old neighborhood could be called â€Å" ancient † Mexican villages. It is the side of Tonga Indian ruins and homes built on homes for thousands of years. Mostly Hispanic, cattle ranches gardens, farms that fed everyone who live in the area, hospital, school. It was a community in every sense of the word. Vet little U. S. /California involvement- people were left alone. Most American cities were attempting to glamorize their appearances such as large shining buildings, sports complex, and collect the poor into public housing. Federal housing and urban development gave L. A. money to buy the land and build Elysian Heights. Chavez gives up the land L. A. starts buying pieces for $10,000 at first, then offer less and less as time passes. 1952- 80% of 1100 homes have been bulldozed. In 1952, Maylor Poulson of L. A. declares public housing is communism committee against social housing C. A. S. H. + Maylor cancelled projects. â€Å"Imminent domain† public use, land can be taken by the government. Law used to remove residents of Chavez residents were paid with promise of placement in Elysion Heights. Manvel Arichega(1954)- last resident forcibly removed from his house in L. R. at gunpoint and bloodied family with home. L. A. times was present + reporting therefore no guns were fired. It would have been the final bad move by the L. A. city council paid $10,500. â€Å"Death of Baseball† in America. † (Blizzard) Fig. 2. Anonymous, photographer, Los Angeles Times, Chavez Ravine property owners examine bulldozed ruins (Los Angeles, May 1959). After all those things went through, there were minorities’ reactions against discrimination. But since it was against big government, not an individual personal problem, it was very hard to change it and fix the problem. However, minorities have been protesting, and screaming civil rights, and local state. But nothing was really seems to be changed and fixed until federal government felt guilty themselves. Eventually at some point, federal government felt guilty about segregation, discrimination. They officially removed the law that FHA can able to loan to only white, and changed law that any minorities also can buy a house in suburbia. Also tried to protect minorities from racism. For an example, â€Å"little rock nine† â€Å"When the federal court ordered Gov. Faubus to stop interfering with the court’s order, Faubus removed the guardsmen from in front of the school. On September 23, the Nine entered the school for the first time. Calling the mob’s actions â€Å"disgraceful,† Eisenhower called out 1,200 members of the U. S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division—the â€Å"Screaming Eagles† of Fort Campbell, Kentucky—and placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal orders. On September 25, 1957, under federal troop escort, the Nine were escorted back into Central for their first full day of classes. After the Nine suffered repeated harassment—such as kicking, shoving, and name calling—the military assigned guards to escort them to classes. Fig. 3. Photo by Will Counts ; courtesy of the Arkansas history Commission. National Guardsman prevents four black students from entering little rock central high school; September 4, 1957. (http://www. encyclopediaofarkansas. net/encyclopedia/media- detail. aspx? mediaID=7784). But however, federal government has changed the law and outlawed discrimination, still There was racism going on in suburbia in individual people’s inside through the cultural experiences. When black family tries to buy a house, after outlawed discrimination, the real happening was that the town improvement association representative comes to the family house, and mostly convince not moving into the town for keeping good neighborhood and community and they discouraged people(minority) who tries to buy a house. As it said â€Å"at the moment the overwhelming majority of our people out there feel that people get along better, take more of a common interest in the life of the community, when they share a common background. I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it†. (Littell) Or they just told them that they will not sell houses to them face to face. â€Å"Others were straightforward: â€Å"You’re colored, aren’t you? I can’t do anything for you,† said one. † (Kruse) Even federal government has been trying hard to not have discrimination, it did not work out well. Instead of keep trying on this side, they created a new project and went into it. The idea was rebuilding urban area. Black people also liked more the idea of rebuilding urban area. The black middle class wants to â€Å"restore† communities, and housing to safe, prosperous, and tranquil places. † (Hyra) While suburbia was developing very quickly, the urban area was decaying very quickly. A lot of areas in the city have broken houses and some factories for industry. So it can create jobs for minorities. To make better community, and society, federal government spent more money for school education, and condition than they used to spend before. So minorities could be satisfied even a little living in urban city. Governments tried hard to reduce the gap of living quality between city and suburbia since white majority people didn’t really want any minorities in their neighborhood. And also federal government ordered to build much more houses in between city area and suburb so there would be plenty of houses for everyone. Plenty of empty houses were owned by the federal government. Thru minorities could able to buy a house easily. This made much easier to buy a house than from owned by white people. After post war, people wanted have better society, community and get out of the city. Thru government and big businesses cooperated each other and started to build suburbia which is located in near outside of the city. FHA built tons of houses and highways. While building new houses and highways, the places where minorities were living in, got bulldozed up their houses by government’s power. They didn’t get a new house after all built up to new houses or highway and didn’t get anything back for compensation. And then FHA started loan to people whoever wants to move in suburbia for selling houses and making profits their business. But it was exclusive. Only white could able to buy and move to suburbia. Any of minorities could not able to buy houses because of FHA didn’t loan to any minorities. Even who has enough money to buy a house, they didn’t sell it to minorities. Eventually federal government felt guilty and outlawed discrimination. But it has been culture deeply on people’s mind. Therefore even government outlawed, people didn’t really turned around. They didn’t want any minorities in their neighborhood. They didn’t sell the house to minorities. Finally federal government created a new project instead of keep trying to work one way. Government started renewal dwelling area in urban city. They started rebuild the houses And factories in the city. They cleaned up the slums and ghetto areas first. Factories, industries created new jobs for minorities. Also government put more money for school, and public systems to make satisfy minorities with their living condition. Then government started builds more houses in between city and suburbia to have plenty of empty houses owned by governments. Therefore it would be easier to buy a house for minorities than buying a house from white person.