The US Supreme Court ruled racial discrimination in zoning to be un-Constitutional in 1917, and barred racially-restrictive covenants in 1948, so local governments and planners had to use various proxies for race to keep Black people out of new neighborhoods post-WWII. Since Black people tended to be economically disadvantaged, wealth was a very useful proxy. They made housing expensive using zoning and building codes to ensure that it was low-density, and required the purchase of a car to access. I keep pushing the book The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, because he laid out in it exactly how deliberate this was.
Later, the physical isolation of an automobile provided a measure of protection for Black families to exist in public spaces, and publications like the Green Book allowed them some of the same freedoms as white people, through the use of their cars. So, in at least two ways, racism pushed people into cars.
buying a f 150 vs a honda civic is the issue. not the existence of suburbs.
and please, i live in a city that needs no cars, and people here are still racist as fuck. often the non-car owners are the most virulent racist because they are the most self righteous and get angry at the immigrants who need a car to drive to clean their $5 million dollar home… and the irony is tops with those folks.
The US Supreme Court ruled racial discrimination in zoning to be un-Constitutional in 1917, and barred racially-restrictive covenants in 1948, so local governments and planners had to use various proxies for race to keep Black people out of new neighborhoods post-WWII. Since Black people tended to be economically disadvantaged, wealth was a very useful proxy. They made housing expensive using zoning and building codes to ensure that it was low-density, and required the purchase of a car to access. I keep pushing the book The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, because he laid out in it exactly how deliberate this was.
Later, the physical isolation of an automobile provided a measure of protection for Black families to exist in public spaces, and publications like the Green Book allowed them some of the same freedoms as white people, through the use of their cars. So, in at least two ways, racism pushed people into cars.
you’re talking about housing, not cars.
buying a f 150 vs a honda civic is the issue. not the existence of suburbs.
and please, i live in a city that needs no cars, and people here are still racist as fuck. often the non-car owners are the most virulent racist because they are the most self righteous and get angry at the immigrants who need a car to drive to clean their $5 million dollar home… and the irony is tops with those folks.