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A group of researchers from Northeastern University and Tufts University has called for funds from President Biden’s infrastructure bill to be diverted to dismantling “racist infrastructure” which is currently disproportionally impacting minority neighborhoods in the United States. The... View full entry
Vestiges of racism and oppression, from bricked-over segregated entrances to the forgotten sites of racial violence, still permeate much of America’s built environment. — The New York Times
For the NYT, photojournalist Richard Frishman shares powerful images of sites, buildings, and places throughout the United States along with their almost forgotten, sometimes preserved, stories from America's segregated past. "All human landscapes are embedded with cultural meaning," Frishman... View full entry
2020 has brought an increase in activism as the public reached its final tipping point from the racial and social injustices happening across the nation. With the inexcusable deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and others caused by police brutality, individuals... View full entry
Laura Blokker, interim director of the Tulane University School of Architecture's Preservation Studies program, and Andrew Liles, assistant professor of architecture at the school, have won the Richard L. Blinder Award, a $15,000 grant from the Trustees of the James Marston Fitch... View full entry
The aftermath of George Floyd’s death while in police custody has created a moment for radical truth-telling. So here’s some ugly truth about the city of Los Angeles: Our freeway system is one of the most noxious monuments to racism and segregation in the country. — The Los Angeles Times
Mattew Fleischer, Senior Digital Editor of The Los Angeles Times pens an editorial for the newspaper highlighting the indefensible, racist legacy of highway construction in American cities. Citing historical research regarding the ways in which highway construction and urban renewal... View full entry
The Fair Housing Act [...] prohibits not only intentional segregation, but also policies and practices whose effect is to discriminate for no defensible reason, even if there is no evidence of a racial motive. Lawyers describe such actions as having a “disparate impact” on minorities.
Now, however, the Trump administration is about to put into effect procedures to make it virtually impossible to prove disparate impact, no matter how egregious a discriminatory policy or practice may be.
— The New York Times
Richard Rothstein, author of the influential book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, presents an opinion piece in The New York Times highlighting the latest multi-pronged efforts on the part of the United States Department of Housing and Urban... View full entry
Segregated play spaces are to be banned in all future London housing developments, the Greater London Authority (GLA) has revealed this week.
The policy, part of the London Plan for developers and local authorities across the city, follows outrage across the political spectrum at the case of the Lilian Baylis estate in Kennington. [...] families living in the social housing side of the estate were not allowed to use the play area or any communal spaces on the development.
— The Guardian
"It is disgraceful that children who live in the same development would ever be prevented from playing together," London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Guardian. The case of the segregated play areas at this London housing development (and several others) — only children from Lilian Baylis... View full entry
In a bold move to address its affordable-housing crisis and confront a history of racist housing practices, Minneapolis has decided to eliminate single-family zoning, a classification that has long perpetuated segregation. — NYT
This post is brought to you by Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis With its tree-lined streets and stately architecture, Shaw is among St. Louis’ oldest and most elegant neighborhoods. It is also among the city’s most integrated. According to U.S... View full entry
The prevalence of gated communities may also reveal what South Africans think constitutes middle class life. As it did under apartheid, it often means avoiding the poor unless they are servants, nannies or gardeners. Instead of creating racial segregation, gated communities often broaden the economic gap in South Africa and restricts development to privatized progress. — Quartz
"As state institutions flounder, estate living has gone on to offer attached private schools and clinics," Lynsey Chutel writes for Quartz Africa. "Privatized amenities in gated communities mean citizens don’t have to hold the city accountable, which is a shame because these are the citizens who... View full entry
Last week, HUD published a notice in the Federal Register announcing its intentions to suspend enforcement of the rule until 2020, the New York Times reports. The notice “tells cities already at work on the detailed plans required by the rule that they no longer need to submit them, and the department says it will stop reviewing plans that have already been filed,” according to the paper. — NextCity
In 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, under the Obama administration, issued legislation intended to bolster the enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, a decades-old law designed to combat segregation across the country. The new, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule... View full entry
A real estate developer in Hawaii is under scrutiny for its plans to build a residential high-rise that has two separate entrances: one for high-income residents and another for low-income earners.
[...] will include 78 affordable rental units for people earning 80 percent or less of the area median income, as required by Honolulu’s affordable housing strategy. The other 351 units will be market-priced condominiums. If things go as ProsPac plans, the units will be separated with two entrances.
— huffingtonpost.com
Various examples of so-called "poor doors" in New York City, London, and Vancouver made the headlines in previous years, sparking heated debate across a number of Archinect comment sections. View full entry
Segregation is no accident.Nearly five decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968, American cities remain racially, culturally, spatially and economically divided. Entrenched conditions and persistent biases undermine the policies and priorities that would heal lingering wounds.So argues Catalina... View full entry
Block a highway, and you upend the economic life of a city, as well as the spatial logic that has long allowed people to pass through them without encountering their poverty or problems. Block a highway, and you command a lot more attention than would a rally outside a church or city hall — from traffic helicopters, immobile commuters, alarmed officials. — the Washington Post
The article notes that, historically, highway construction decimated black communities, such as in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Oakland, and many other cities. In New York, Robert Moses explicitly used highways to clear "slums," in the process devastating parts of the Bronx and other black... View full entry
To most people, zoning and land-use regulations might conjure up little more than images of late-night City Council meetings full of gadflies and minutiae. But these laws go a long way toward determining some fundamental aspects of life: what American neighborhoods look like, who gets to live where and what schools their children attend.
And when zoning laws get out of hand, economists say, the damage to the American economy and society can be profound.
— the New York Times
"Studies have shown that laws aimed at things like “maintaining neighborhood character” or limiting how many unrelated people can live together in the same house contribute to racial segregation and deeper class disparities. They also exacerbate inequality by restricting the... View full entry
