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The definitive book why American cities were gutted is available and it outlines the names and motives on why the cities were sacrificed. The destruction of the ethnic neighborhoods that made up the human, residential heart of these cities was not an unfortunate by-product of a well-intentioned plan that somehow went awry; it was part of the plan itself.
Blockbusting happened in almost every rust belt and East Coast city from the 50s and beyond. A White oldtimer in Chicago told me that the realtors were mostly affluent Jewish people who wanted to "ethnically" cleanse poorer, White Catholic areas (see book above ^). He was one of the last holdouts in a formerly White neighborhood that turned completely Black in 2 years(68-70) and stayed there until 1975 when it was solidly Black for 5 years. I wasn't living back then so I can't dispute his claims.
Blockbusting - same exact thing happened in the early 70's in East Flatbush. Brokers bought a couple of houses, moved blacks into them, and BAM! It was a race as to who could get out the fastest. There were moving vans in the area everyday. The entire area where I lived (I was still a kid) changed from 100% white to almost all black in just a few years.
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Originally Posted by Fred314X
I come from Brownsville; my family was definitely a part of the 'white flight' phenomenon. Where I lived, virtually all the homeowners--my grandparents included--were of the immigrant generation. Sleazy realtors found it exceptionally easy to frighten them into selling. They just implied that if someone didn't sell right away, they'd find themselves left behind. They knew nobody was going to sit down and talk things over with their neighbors. It was called blockbusting--and going by the absolute exodus from Brownsville between 1960 and 1965, you can't help but conclude that it was phenomenally successful. For the realtors; not for the well-being of the neighborhood.
It also happened in parts of SEQueens that were still majority white in the early 60s (e.g., Cambria Heights & Laurelton). I watched my mostly white neighborhood in 1968 turn just about all black by the mid 70s. It was because of this that I became an Urban Studies major in college. So yes, blockbusting and it's evil twin, redlining were alive and well.
Redlining, the practice by lending institutions to put a red line around areas where they wouldn't loan out mortgage funds was permitted by Urban Renewal as passed by the Democrat Congress and signed into law by a Democrat president in the late 1940s. Prior to that law, Brooklyn was well integrated, with one or two African-American families on many blocks; and, a few years later, as a result of this permitted practice, African-Americans became concentrated in certain neighborhoods as white flight from these previously integrated neighborhoods occurred.
Blockbusting happened in almost every rust belt and East Coast city from the 50s and beyond. A White oldtimer in Chicago told me that the realtors were mostly affluent Jewish people who wanted to "ethnically" cleanse poorer, White Catholic areas (see book above ^). He was one of the last holdouts in a formerly White neighborhood that turned completely Black in 2 years(68-70) and stayed there until 1975 when it was solidly Black for 5 years. I wasn't living back then so I can't dispute his claims.
The book actually blames the WASPs, not the Jews, on engineering the white flight, but it's all the same: it's in the nature of the poor to blame 'the Man' for their problems, an idea particularly enticing if 'the Man' is ethnically/religiously different from them.
White flight in this form, in any case, is much older than urban renewal schemes and forcible integration. The best known example is Harlem, of course, which turned from two thirds white (very heavily Jewish) in 1920 to two thirds black by 1930 (and around 90% black by 1940): precisely the same fate that neighborhoods like Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant sufferent in the 1950's or Canarsie in the 1990's.
Blame it on the 'blockbusters' and the government all you want, but if not for the panicked selling by local racists, the neighborhoods wouldn't have had to flip over so quickly. White flight stemmed not from any insidious activity by the outsiders, but from the fear of a black neighbor, nothing more.
White flight in this form, in any case, is much older than urban renewal schemes and forcible integration. The best known example is Harlem, of course, which turned from two thirds white (very heavily Jewish) in 1920 to two thirds black by 1930 (and around 90% black by 1940): precisely the same fate that neighborhoods like Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant sufferent in the 1950's or Canarsie in the 1990's.
Unlike what occurred in Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy or Canarsie, Jews moving out of Harlem into the Bronx had nothing to do with redlining and white flight:
Following the subways extending north into the Bronx, there was a building boom and many new apartment building were put up in the Bronx, and these new apartment buildings attracted many Jewish families away from Harlem with their lower rents.
The landlords who owned the now emptying out apartment buildings in Harlem were faced with an economic disaster and looked to rent these apartments and allowed them to be rented to Blacks, making Harlem an African-American community.
"these new apartment buildings attracted many Jewish families away from Harlem with their lower rents."
Um, in the 50's, white families were also abandoning Brooklyn for the presumably cleaner, safer and airier suburbs (which is the other side of the story - why is everyone on this thread, including me, assuming whites were fleeing FROM the blacks, and not TO the better living conditions of the suburbs?).
So that's not all that different from the abandonment of Harlem. No. If you have to talk about the history of white flight in New York, Harlem in the 1920's would be a very typical and very prominent example.
Um, in the 50's, white families were also abandoning Brooklyn for the presumably cleaner, safer and airier suburbs (which is the other side of the story - why is everyone on this thread, including me, assuming whites were fleeing FROM the blacks, and not TO the better living conditions of the suburbs?).
So that's not all that different from the abandonment of Harlem. No. If you have to talk about the history of white flight in New York, Harlem in the 1920's would be a very typical and very prominent example.
No.
Beginning in the late 1940s when it was made part of the Urban Renewal legislation by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by a Democratic president, redlining allowed banks to draw red lines around certain areas (usually those areas with a few Black families living among many White families) and not to offer mortgages in those areas. Whites in adjoining areas saw what was happening and wanted out before no mortgages would be allowed on the blocks where they owned homes. Many homes were sold for a lot less than they were worth before redlining.
This is much different than what occurred in Harlem.
The book actually blames the WASPs, not the Jews, on engineering the white flight,
BTW, what book are you speaking of?
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but it's all the same: it's in the nature of the poor to blame 'the Man' for their problems, an idea particularly enticing if 'the Man' is ethnically/religiously different from them.
White flight in this form, in any case, is much older than urban renewal schemes and forcible integration. The best known example is Harlem, of course, which turned from two thirds white (very heavily Jewish) in 1920 to two thirds black by 1930 (and around 90% black by 1940): precisely the same fate that neighborhoods like Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant sufferent in the 1950's or Canarsie in the 1990's.
Blame it on the 'blockbusters' and the government all you want, but if not for the panicked selling by local racists, the neighborhoods wouldn't have had to flip over so quickly. White flight stemmed not from any insidious activity by the outsiders, but from the fear of a black neighbor, nothing more.
Your post is a bit dangerous as it takes just enough fact to contrive a premises to support one's prejudice.
To lump the circumstance of the creation of Harlem, the white flight of Fort Green, etc. all into one is non-sensical!!!! Totally different circumstance, causes and effects.
JFYI, black Harlem came to be out of two incidents, first the race riots in lower Manhattan and the failed real estate speculation in Harlem. Simply put the riots created the impetus for blacks, specifically black churches to move from the downtown neighborhoods of their history; along with the churches followed their constituencies. Blacks were welcomed and sought after by the realtors simply because there was no one else to fill the vacancies in Harlem that was the result of over-building and recession.
It was never a matter of Harlem being all white and then the blacks moved in and white flight ensued. Such is an absolute fallacy.
The real creation impetus was the inhospital conditions downtown after the riots, the demand for land downtown, the reversal of demand for land and property in Harlem---which, simply put, allowed for the black churches to sell high and buy low. They did so and built magnificent churches, along with housing for their constituents (the first black Harlemites).
Just a beginning, but the article has great references!!!:
Yeah but selling like this is crazy if you think you can make a fortune. The property values go down. Then they sell for less. Less commissions. But who was buying then? The blacks and hispanics were for the most part renters in those days. Did they bought to rent to poor Black and Hispanic people? Crazy thinking if you ask me.
Do a little homework whydontcha!
You're making a lot of pre-suppositions w/o investigating FACTS! Which is why you are confused.
"If it doesn't make sense, then it isn't true." ~ Judge Judy
As has been explained to you. Brokers make money on the transaction. The general fee from the 80s to today (presuming it to be say back then) is 6%. A house sells for $100K the broker pockets 6% or $6,000. The more properties a broker sells the more fees he/she earns. Not complicated. Get an entire neighborhood to panic sell (blockbusting) and the local neighborhood realtors make a fortune----additionally, people tend to continue to congregate from the old neighborhood to the new neighborhood/town----so astute brokers will manage to get paid twice!!!
As far as property values going down----you succumb to MYTHS and PREJUDICE, rather than facts and reality.
The properties were bought by somebody correct? Or, do you propose that the old whites simply rented out the neighborhood to the blacks?
The values did NOT go down---such was a mythic threat used to incite white people to sell. The fact is that the homes were never discounted, they were sold at and in many many cases above market value. This is all documented ripoffs of black homeowners.
Values were indeed effected over a good deal of time, but not immediately so. Though there are several reasons for the values to be effected, the most significant negative effects were Redlinning and the scourge of Drugs, both of which was government induced and encouraged.
"White Flight" entails a great many significant questions regarding the policies of our government and the influence of corporate America. Who was behind Robert Moses, and why was he given free reign to buildout our highway system and encourage the de-population of the city (cities) and the growth of suburbs. What was the reasoning, purpose, extent and result of Redlining.
The propaganda would have us believe that a single black family moved in, the realtors screamed the N-word, and everybody ran for the highways leaving the blacks behind creating little white utopias surrounding the city (cities). Of course NOTHING is ever so simple.
It was all a lie and a manipulation. To comprehend it all, you'll have to do a little homework.
Generally, “blockbusting” denotes the real estate and building development business practices yielding double profits from U.S. anti-black racism; aggravating, by subterfuge, the white home owners’ fears of mixed-race communities to encourage them to quickly sell their houses at a loss, at below-market prices, and then selling that property to black Americans at higher-than-market prices. Given the federally-legislated racial discrimination in mortgage-lending, black people usually did not qualify for mortgages from banks and savings and loan associations, instead, they recurred to land installment contracts at usuriousinterest rates to buy a house — a racist economic strategy eventually leading to foreclosure.[2] With blockbusting, real estate companies legally profited from the arbitrage (the difference between the discounted price paid to frightened white sellers and the artificially high price paid by black buyers), and from the commissions resulting from increased real estate sales, and from their usuriousfinancing of said house sales to black Americans.[2] The documentary film Revolution '67 (2007) examines the blockbusting practiced in Newark, New Jersey in the 1960s.
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Redlining was permitted by Urban Renewal
