Housing Segregation - Segregation and Neighborhood Disinvestment

Segregation and Neighborhood Disinvestment

The relegation of African Americans to certain contained neighborhoods continues today. The cycle of neighborhood disinvestment followed by gentrification and dislocation of the minority has made it difficult for African Americans to establish themselves, build equity, and try to break out into suburban neighborhoods. If they have the means to relocate, the neighborhoods they relocate to are most likely populated by European American people who support open housing laws in theory, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are faced with a rising Black population in their own neighborhood. This white flight creates an overwhelmingly African American neighborhood, and then disinvestment begins anew. All of these subtle discriminatory practices leave the metropolitan African American population with few options, forcing them to remain in disinvested neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and dilapidated housing.

Neighborhood disinvestment is a systematic withdrawal of capital and neglect of public services by the city. Public services may include schools; building, street, and park maintenance; garbage collection and transportation. Absentee landlordism and mortgage redlining also characterize disinvestment. As redlining prevents households from owning, they have no choice but to rent from landlords that neglect property and charge high rent. These factors allow the devalorization cycle to occur in a neighborhood, eventually leading to the reclamation and transformation of the neighborhood, uprooting the poor residents who have no equity to use for relocation.

Following the African American neighborhood of Albina in Portland, Oregon through the 20th century shows the systematic disinvestment in the neighborhood by the city of Portland, culminating in abandonment and then gentrification of the neighborhood. The African Americans who lived there had no other designated part of the city to move to, having been relocated time and again as the city decided to tear down their dilapidated houses for redevelopment and beautification of the central city.