Facially neutral industrial rezoning disproportionately displaced black neighborhoods
Evidence
In addition to discriminatory real estate and lending practices and “white flight,” a variety of facially neutral rules and decisions add to the creation and maintenance of racially identified, and subordinate, neighborhoods. For instance, the MIT economist Yale Rabin has demonstrated that, in communities across the country, many residential neighborhoods composed of people of color have been re-zoned as industrial by white planning boards, a process Rabin calls “expulsive zoning.” While these zoning decisions are not made with reference to race, their impact, given racial segregation, has profound racial implications. As Rabin explains, “[b]ecause it appears that [the re-zoned] areas were mainly black, and because whites who may have been similarly displaced were not subject to racially determined limitations in seeking alternative housing, the adverse impacts of expulsive zoning on blacks were far more severe and included, in addition to accelerated blight, increases in overcrowding and racial segregation.” — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 349
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces Yale Rabin’s useful coined term ‘expulsive zoning’ for a facially neutral mechanism with raced outcomes.”
- XREF: connects to: Facially-neutral rezoning displaces black residents into blight and industrial exposure; Fair Housing Act can reach municipal zoning decisions harming communities of color; Early zoning bodies deliberately down-zoned black neighborhoods to industrial status — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 362 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Early zoning bodies deliberately down-zoned black neighborhoods to industrial status
#exemplifies(0.90) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 362 - Racialized structures distribute resources and access by race
#expands(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1828 - Municipal boundary lines perpetuate racial and class segregation
#expands(0.75) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1349