African-American Neighborhood - Built Environment

Built Environment

Although, after the Great Migration from the rural South, many African American neighborhoods are located in inner cities or part of an urban center, there is a growing number of suburban neighborhoods with black majority populations or with a significant population. These are the mostly residential neighborhoods located closest to the central business district. The built environment is often 19th- and early 20th-century row houses or brownstones, mixed with older single-family homes that may be converted to multifamily homes. In some areas there are larger apartment buildings.

Shotgun houses are an important part of the built environment of some southern African American neighborhoods. The houses consist of three to five rooms in a row with no hallways. This African American house design is found in both rural and urban southern areas, mainly in African-American communities and neighborhoods (especially in New Orleans).

The term "shotgun house," is often said to come from the saying that one could fire a shotgun through the front door and the pellets would fly cleanly through the house and out the back door. However, the name's origin may actually reflect an African architectural heritage, perhaps being a corruption of a term such as to-gun, which means "place of assembly" in the Southern Dohomey Fon area.

During the periods of population decline and urban decay in the 1970s and 1980s many African American neighborhoods, like other urban minority neighborhoods, repurposed abandoned lots as community gardens. Community gardens serve social and economic functions, providing safe, open spaces in areas with few parks. Organizations such as Philadelphia Green, organized by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, have helped communities organize gardens to build community feeling and improve neighborhoods. They can be places for socialization, fresh vegetables in neighborhoods poorly served by supermarkets, and sources of traditional African American produce.