This piece in Pacific Standard echoes the more socioeconomic element of this. Not sure how Providence and Barrington map onto the racial divide mentioned.
http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/geography-is-budget-destiny-a-tale-of-two-cities-50695/ On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 12:52 PM, c b <[email protected]> wrote: > A House Divided > > Why do middle-class blacks have far less wealth than whites at the > same income level? The answer is in real estate and history. > > By Thomas J. Sugrue > > > In 1973, my parents sold their modest house on Detroit’s West Side to > Roosevelt Smith, a Vietnam War veteran and an assembly-line worker at > Ford, and his wife, Virginia (not their real names). For the > Smiths—African Americans and native Mississippians—the neighborhood > was an appealing place to raise their two young children, and the > price was within their means: $17,500. The neighborhood’s > three-bedroom colonials and Tudors, mostly built between the mid-1920s > and the late ’40s, were well maintained, the streets quiet and lined > with stately trees. Nearby was a movie theater, a good grocery store, > a local department store, and a decent shopping district. Like many > first-time home buyers, the Smiths had every reason to expect that > their house would be an appreciating investment. > > For their part, my parents moved to a rapidly growing suburb that > would soon be incorporated as Farmington Hills. Their new house, on a > quiet, curvilinear street, was a significant step up from the Detroit > place. It had four bedrooms, a two-car attached garage, and a large > yard. It cost them $43,000. Within a few years, they had added a > family room and expanded the small rear patio. Their subdivision, like > most in Farmington Hills, was carefully zoned. The public schools were > modern and well funded, with substantial revenues from the town’s > mostly middle- and upper-middle-class taxpayers. All of the creature > comforts of the good suburban life were close at hand: shopping malls, > swim clubs, movie theaters, good restaurants. > > My parents lived in the Farmington house for a little over twenty > years. When my father retired in the mid-1990s, the property had > appreciated by about $100,000. They did not get rich from the proceeds > of their home sale—indeed, after adjusting for inflation, the house > was worth slightly less than they paid for it, not even counting > interest costs and taxes. But it nonetheless allowed them to walk away > with about $80,000. > > For the Smiths it was a far different story. Detroit had been losing > population since the 1950s, and especially after the 1967 riots there > was massive “white flight” from the city. The neighborhood in which > the Smiths invested went from mostly white to black within a few > years, along with the rest of Detroit. For the city as a whole, those > who remained were not as well off on average as those who left, > meaning that even as the tax base shrank, the demand for city services > went up, setting off a vicious death spiral. Soon, schools and > infrastructure groaned with age, and the city’s tax base shrank > further as businesses relocated to suburban office parks and shopping > centers. By the end of the ’70s, the decline of the auto industry and > manufacturing generally compounded Detroit’s woes, as production > shifted to Japan or the South in search of cheaper labor and fewer > regulations. > > For the rest: > http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2013/features/a_house_divided042051.php > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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