You probably think your neighborhood's layout is just a fluke of the market. You assume people moved where they could afford, or maybe where they felt comfortable, and that over time, things just... settled that way. It’s a common belief. Honestly, it's what most of us were taught in school. We talk about "de facto" segregation as if it’s some organic, accidental byproduct of private prejudice or income gaps. But if you've ever read The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, you know that narrative is basically a fairy tale.
The truth is much grittier.
The racial architecture of American cities wasn't an accident. It was a project. We are living inside a map that was drawn with intent, funded by taxpayers, and enforced by the highest levels of government. When we talk about The Color of Law, we are talking about "de jure" segregation—segregation by law and public policy. It wasn't just a few bigoted neighbors; it was the FHA, the VA, and local zoning boards working in a synchronized effort to ensure that Black and white Americans lived in different worlds.
The Myth of the "Accidental" Suburb
The post-WWII housing boom is usually remembered as the golden age of the American Dream. Veterans came home, got low-interest loans, and moved into shiny new developments like Levittown. But there's a massive asterisk there. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) specifically mandated that these developments remain white-only.
They didn't just suggest it. They required it.
If a developer wanted a government-backed loan to build a massive subdivision, the FHA often made them include restrictive covenants in the deeds. These clauses legally prohibited the sale of houses to Black families. In many cases, the FHA's own Underwriting Manual explicitly stated that "incompatible racial elements" would destabilize property values. They actually believed—and codified into law—that a single Black family moving into a neighborhood would ruin the investment for everyone else.
It's wild to think about now, but the government was essentially the primary architect of the racial wealth gap. Because housing is the main way American middle-class families build equity, locking an entire demographic out of the suburban explosion meant locking them out of decades of wealth accumulation.
Redlining Wasn't Just About Banks
We hear the term "redlining" a lot, but its origins are more bureaucratic than most people realize. In the 1930s, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) created "Residential Security Maps." They literally took out crayons and colored neighborhoods.
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Green was "Type A," the safest for investment.
Red was "Type D," the most "hazardous."
And guess what the primary criteria for a red rating was? It wasn't just old buildings or proximity to factories. It was the presence of Black residents. Even a neighborhood with a small Black population was often marked red, meaning residents couldn't get mortgages to repair their homes, and outsiders couldn't get mortgages to buy into the area. This wasn't a private bank making a risky bet; this was a federal agency setting the rules of the game.
The Public Housing Pivot
Before the mid-20th century, public housing wasn't just for the poor. It was for the working class. And, surprisingly, much of it was integrated—or at least, neighborhoods were. In many Northern and Border cities, Black and white families lived in the same blocks.
Then the government stepped in.
During the New Deal and after WWII, the government began demolishing integrated neighborhoods to build segregated public housing. In cities like St. Louis and Miami, the government took mixed-race areas and intentionally moved white families into one project and Black families into another, often miles apart. They used the power of the state to shatter existing communities and replace them with state-sanctioned silos. This created a level of segregation that hadn't even existed before the government "fixed" the housing problem.
Local Governments and the "Zoning" Weapon
State and federal agencies get most of the blame, but local towns were incredibly creative with their discrimination. When the Supreme Court ruled in Buchanan v. Warley (1917) that racial zoning ordinances were unconstitutional, cities didn't just give up. They pivoted to "exclusionary zoning."
They started requiring massive lot sizes or banning multi-family apartments.
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While these laws didn't mention race, the intent was often clear: keep out the people who can't afford a large single-family home on an acre of land. In some cases, towns would even rezone a Black residential area as "industrial," allowing toxic factories or waste plants to be built right next to schools and homes. This decimated property values and health outcomes in Black communities while protecting white "residential" enclaves.
The Ghost of 1968
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was supposed to end all this. It made it illegal to discriminate in the sale, rental, or financing of housing. But by 1968, the damage was largely done. The suburbs were built. The equity had grown. White families who bought a house for $8,000 in 1950 saw that asset appreciate to $100,000 or more by the time they wanted to send their kids to college.
Black families, denied those same $8,000 homes, were stuck paying rent.
Rent doesn't build equity. It doesn't get passed down to the next generation. This is why, today, the median white family has roughly eight to ten times the wealth of the median Black family. It’s not a difference in "culture" or "work ethic." It’s the lingering math of The Color of Law.
Real-World Consequences You Can Still See
If you want to see the ghost of these policies, look at a "heat island" map of any major city. Areas that were redlined in the 1930s are consistently hotter—sometimes by 10 or 15 degrees—than green-lined neighborhoods. Why? Because the redlined areas have fewer trees, more pavement, and more industrial zoning.
It's also in the highways.
During the Eisenhower era, the Interstate Highway System was often used as a tool for "urban renewal." In city after city, planners deliberately routed massive highways through thriving Black business districts and residential hubs. They called it "blight removal." In reality, it was a way to clear out Black neighborhoods that were "too close" to white downtown areas, effectively walling off communities with concrete barriers.
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Correcting the Record: It Wasn't Just the South
One of the biggest misconceptions is that this was a Southern problem. It wasn't. In fact, some of the most rigid segregation was engineered in Northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Seattle.
In California, the real estate industry fought tooth and nail to keep neighborhoods white. In 1964, California voters actually passed Proposition 14, which aimed to overturn a state law that prohibited housing discrimination. It was a popular movement to keep the right to discriminate. The Supreme Court eventually struck it down, but the sentiment was clear: this was a national consensus, not a regional quirk.
Why This Matters for Policy Today
Understanding that our segregation was "de jure" (government-mandated) changes the legal conversation. If the government caused the problem, the 5th and 14th Amendments suggest the government has a constitutional obligation to fix it. This isn't just about "being nice" or "diversity." It’s about a massive, state-sponsored violation of civil rights that has never been fully remedied.
We see the effects in school funding, too. Since we fund schools primarily through local property taxes, the segregation of housing becomes the segregation of education. A child's zip code remains the most accurate predictor of their future success. That's not a bug in the system; it's the system working exactly as it was designed eighty years ago.
Actionable Insights: How to Move Forward
The scale of the problem is huge, but it isn't permanent. We can't change the past, but we can stop the policies that keep the cycle moving.
- Audit Your Local Zoning: Attend city council meetings. Most people don't. Ask why your town doesn't allow duplexes or accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Modern "exclusionary zoning" is the direct descendant of the policies in The Color of Law. Supporting "upzoning" is a concrete way to break the monopoly of segregated suburbs.
- Support Fair Housing Enforcement: The Fair Housing Act is often underfunded. Support organizations like the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) that actually investigate and sue landlords and banks who still practice modern-day redlining through algorithmic bias or predatory lending.
- Re-evaluate School Boundaries: Many school districts are still drawn along the exact lines of the 1930s HOLC maps. Advocating for school choice across district lines or socioeconomic integration programs can help decouple a child's education from their neighborhood's history.
- Invest in Formerly Redlined Areas: Not through gentrification that pushes people out, but through "community land trusts" and "greenlining" initiatives that provide low-interest loans and home-improvement grants to long-term residents in historically disinvested neighborhoods.
- Educate the Next Generation: Most history books still gloss over the FHA's role in segregation. Making sure local school boards include the history of federal housing policy in their curriculum is vital. You can't fix a problem if you don't acknowledge its source.
The American landscape was built by design. If we want a different outcome, we have to be just as intentional about our new designs as the planners of the 1930s were about theirs. We've inherited a map of inequality, but we're the ones holding the pens now.