Dear friends,
In order to grasp what it will take to undo racial inequality in housing, we must first understand how it was established and perpetuated. Our newly released report—Roots, Race, and Place— attempts to do just that for the San Francisco Bay Area.
Authors Eli Moore, Nicole Montojo, and Nicole Mauri give a detailed examination of the roots of the region’s racial exclusion in housing and find that racism reinvents itself, proving to be dynamic, generative, and fluid, yet also remarkably durable and entrenched.
The historical account also reveals that while racialized housing inequality in the Bay Area is part of a national dialectic, it is not a function of factors outside of local control. This report delves specifically into the local by examining the many tactics of exclusion driven by local actors such as homeowners’ associations and neighborhood groups; real estate agents and developers; and local government institutions and public agencies, which shape policies and markets, thus blurring the lines between public and private accountability and action.
This history established massive inequities in who owned land, who had access to financing, and who held political power, all of which determined―and still remain at the root of deciding―who can call the Bay Area home.
How can we transform our institutions of local governance, zoning ordinances, housing markets, systems of property rights, connection to land, and relationships to our neighbors in order to fully realize racial equity and belonging?
I hope this report sparks conversation about this question, and hope that you'll take time to read this carefully researched document on the deeply interconnected historical roots of race and place.
Regards,
john a. powell
Director, Haas Institute and Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley
|
|
|
An anti-Chinese riot in front of San Francisco City Hall in 1877, where the Main Library now stands. Line drawing by H.A. Rodgers. Courtesy of the California Historical Society.
|
|
|
|
In 1962, Berkeley teacher Miss Frances Fletcher presents statistics gathered by the National Real Estate Research Corporation on racial discrimination in San Francisco's rental housing market showing that two-thirds of landlords refused to rent to African Americans. Courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
|
|
|
|
The Price List for the Berkeley Park subdivision in Kensington includes a restriction against “Asiatics or Africans.” George Friend Company, ca. 1914. Courtesy of Earth Sciences and Map Library, University of California, Berkeley.
|
|
|
|
Oct 11, 12:00 noon: The Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at Berkeley Law, the Equal Justice Society, and the Haas Institute invite you to this book launch event with Ian Haney Lopez on his new work MERGE LEFT: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America. David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA. Details here.
|
|
|
Oct 14, 3:00 pm: Join us for a talk by Lawrence Lanahan, author of The Lines Between Us: Two Families and a Quest to Cross Baltimore's Racial Divide who will be in conversation with Haas Institute director john a. powell. Discussion followed by audience Q&A. Details here.
|
|
|
