Land Use is a very controversial topic that includes many different areas, but for this paper I am specifically going to focus on the area of zoning laws. Zoning is the process of dividing land in a municipality into zones, where certain areas are either permitted or prohibited. The primary purpose of zoning is to segregate different uses that are thought to be conflicting with one another. Zoning is an important part to establishing an effective and safe community zones that do not harm or interfere with each other. Zoning laws have positive and negative effects, along with many different types of laws, and scalability. Zoning is a very old practice and can be traced back to antiquity. This ancient walled city was the creator for classifying …show more content…
During 1908, Los Angeles created the nation's first citywide use of zoning ordinance. It was established to protect its expanding residential areas from industrial nuisances. “Though the ordinance did not assign all parts of the city to a zoning map, as with later American ordinances, it did establish both residential and industrial districts (Revolvy).” This occurrence started three large residential districts with identical laws, and they all prohibited business such as manufacturing, lumber yards, and any industry using equipment driven by motors. This started the beginning of zoning in the United States and by 1913, 22 cities existed with zoning …show more content…
This was the major problem with the definition of zoning. It created an indifference in the communities’ neighborhoods. This is a major red flag with zoning. Economic and racial segregation goes beyond market forces or personal choices. The segregation is backed by local laws and ordinances that exclude poor working-class Americans from moving into communities, that in return keep them occupied by the white and wealthy. Now those poor communities are created, and zoning can discourage development in certain locations, that is one of zonings negative effects. Given the drawbacks of zoning laws they are effective when used for ethical and logical purposes that zoning was created
Gentrification is defined as the process by which the wealthy or upper middle class uproot poorer individuals through the renovation and rebuilding of poor neighborhoods. Many long-term residents find themselves no longer able to afford to live in an area, where the rent and property values are increasing. Gentrification is a very controversial topic, revealing both the positive and negative aspects of the process. Some of the more desirable outcomes include reduced crime rate, increased economic activity, and the building of new infrastructures. However, it is debated whether the negatives overwhelm the positive. An increase in the number of evictions of low-income families, often racial minorities can lead to a decline of diversity
Deepening economic inequality is fundamentally associated with the spatial polarization between central cities and sprawling suburbs, and between wealthy regions and poorer ones. Government policies have promoted economic and racial segregation, encouraged businesses and the wealthy to move to outer suburbs, and effectively limited the poor and minorities to central cities or troubled inner-ring suburbs.
Since these were low income areas there wasn’t a high tax revenue to maintain the areas. This would cause in the infrastructures not being up to date or completely reliable. It is far to expensive to pay to renovate these areas and the issue also comes from who will pay for it. when there is a low income area that is heavily concentrated with people it becomes very difficult to upkeep that area which results in it becoming more and more rundown.
Housing developments had exclusive restriction signs to prevent both parties from trespassing on their premises. The restriction contributed to a social setback. It prevented both blacks, ethnic groups and the white from getting to learn about each other's ways of life. On the other hand, the restriction and segregation was a way to prevent interracial marriages a crime, causing racial discrimination.
Furthermore, the consolidations of ghettos in the inner city, as well as the rise of suburbs, are just two of the characteristics and problems that consequently arose for U.S. cities following the culmination of the Second World War. Ghettos in the inner cities were not as successful as they were envisioned to be, because in practice they suffered from overcrowdings, poverty, racial tensions, and violence and drugs. Additionally, public housing projects (created to solve problems with poverty and vagrants caused by the rapid growth of cities) ultimately also suffered from the same fate. As for the emergence of suburbs, they also proved not to be quite as successful as envisioned either, because in practice they created segregated cities and communities.
In the early 1900s, “restrictive covenants” more specifically racially restrictive covenants were legally enforceable agreements that prohibited landowners from leasing or selling property to minority groups, at that time namely African Americans. The practice of the covenants, private, racially restrictive covenants, originated as a reaction to a court ruling in 1917 “which declared municipally mandated racial zoning unconstitutional . . . leaving the door open for private agreements, such as restrictive covenants, to continue to perpetuate residential segregation” (Boston, n.d.). It was more of a symbolic act than attacking the “discriminatory nature” (Schaefer, 2012, p. 184) of the restrictive covenants, when the Supreme Court found in the 1948 case of Shelley v Kraemer that racially restrictive covenants were unconstitutional. In this particular case, a white couple, the Kraemers lived in a neighborhood in Missouri that was governed by a restrictive covenant. When a black couple moved into their neighborhood, the Kraemers went to the court asking that the covenant be enforced. In a unanimous decision, it was decided, “state courts could not constitutionally prevent the sale of real property to blacks even if that property is covered by a racially restrictive covenant. Standing alone, racially restrictive covenants violate no rights. However, their enforcement by state court injunctions constitutes state action in violation of the 14th Amendment” (Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948). Even though the Supreme Court ruled that the covenants were unenforceable, it was not until 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was passed that it become illegal (Latshaw, 2010). Even though today it is illegal, it might appear that we still have an unspoken...
People commonly believe that property values decline when blacks or non-white move into a neighborhood. However, the real reason why property values decline is because of whites moving away and taking their resources with them. White homebuyers fear that property values will decline rapidly when nonwhite residents begin moving into a neighborhood. What they do not take into consideration is that the nonwhite residents may be their socioeconomic equals. Instead, they focus on race—they categorize individuals into socioeconomic classes on the basis of race. When whites or well-intentioned residents move away, businesses and jobs soon follow suit, thus, creating improvised neighborhoods.
Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating such a grave societal problem and furthering social justice.
From slavery to Jim Crow, the impact of racial discrimination has had a long lasting influence on the lives of African Americans. While inequality is by no means a new concept within the United States, the after effects have continued to have an unmatched impact on the racial disparities in society. Specifically, in the housing market, as residential segregation persists along racial and ethnic lines. Moreover, limiting the resources available to black communities such as homeownership, quality education, and wealth accumulation. Essentially leaving African Americans with an unequal access of resources and greatly affecting their ability to move upward in society due to being segregated in impoverished neighborhoods. Thus, residential segregation plays a significant role in
“gentrification as an ugly product of greed. Yet these perspectives miss the point. Gentrification is a byproduct of mankind 's continuing interest in advancing the notion that one group is more superior to another and worthy of capitalistic consumption with little regard to social consciousness. It is elitism of the utmost and exclusionary politics to the core. This has been a constant theme of mankind to take or deplete a space for personal gain. In other words, it 's very similar to the "great advantage" of European powers over Native Americans and westward expansion”(Wharton).
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has played a significant role in reinforcing the problems of housing segregation by allowing intentional discrimination and courts have found HUD liable on many occasions for their overt racist policies in site selection and tenant housing procedures. On both national and local levels, HUD has been found liable for the discriminatory implementation of the Section Eight Housing Assistance Program. For instance, Section Eight subsidy holders living in Yonkers, New York brought a class action lawsuit against a local Section Eight program and the state and federal programs. The tenants alleged that the Section Eight office had steered minority Section Eight holders into apartments in segregated and crumbling neighborhoods. The tenants also contended that they were improperly informed that they could use their subsidies in other neighborhoods and never told about the availability of rent exceptions. Marc Seitles. "RESIDENTIAL RACIAL SEGREGATION." RESIDENTIAL RACIAL SEGREGATION. N.p., 1996. Web. 11 Oct.
In the current century, US is once again becoming segregated by race and economic aspect of the community. Several researches show there are numerous factors involved in this trend, including the United States Supreme Court giving the state sovereignty to determine their policies on desegregation and housing discrimination (Wright and Jacobs 36).
... had also taken money away from inner city housing development. Nevertheless, all people who were not allowed in the suburbs were forced to live outside the suburbs and in the inner city areas. Catholics, Jews and blacks had always been excluded from some neighborhoods, but builders such as the Levitt organization refused to sell to blacks or minorities.
The oldest buildings were found either in or close to the city centre. Buildings became progressively newer towards the city boundary. o The city contained a range of well defined socio-economic and ethnic areas. o
...react to fear within the context of the physical environment (i.e. local neighborhood). The implications of land use controls are explored through conservation policies, environmental injustices, and greenhouse gas emissions. For example, suburbs push for aggressive land-use control in order to increase minimum lot areas, preserve open space and/or reserve extensive tracts of land for residence. Sprawl and the problems that comes along with it are also attached to land use controls. The mechanisms that perpetuate and/or reinforce such “exclusionary residential policies” include codes, covenants, and restrictions (e.g., intensive building codes, anti-tenant zoning, higher tax), enacting the most restrictive land-use controls, home prices and “drive until you qualify,” developers incentive in building spacious subdivisions, and the middle class to upper class sprawl.