Demand, Supply and Discrimination- The Intentional Devaluation of Black Communities.

Let’s break it down: Supply and Demand

Demand is how much people are willing to pay to live/work in a place, which depends on how desirable and economically productive a place is. Factors which increase the desirability and therefore price of property include an educated workforce, good climate, good housing condition, and proximity to the urban cores and metro services.[vi]

Even now, our property values are not reflecting positive factors toward desirability and prices. For example, the California coastline contains some of the most expensive cities to rent and to buy property in the country.[vii] Apparently good climate and close proximity to the new urban cores is now worth millions.

However the property values in Black communities do not reflect these positive factors of an educated workforce, climate and home condition. For example, some zip codes, such as 90301 in Inglewood, CA, are being arbitrarily devalued despite containing a number of two-story homes in good condition with ocean breezes in safe neighborhoods.[viii] Most of these residents have higher education degrees and so do their children[ix]. Our property values are not reflecting these positive factors. In fact, the area is seeing more non-hispanic whites hoping to buy great homes at bargain hood prices.[x]

The same factors which are used to devalue Black communities are being used to increase property values once Blacks have been relocated. For example in 2017 New York Times article “Good Schools, Affordable Homes, Finding the Suburban Sweet Spot,” states that public school system ranking is no longer an important factor with regards to price in newly redone urban areas like San Francisco, where most of the property is now some of the most expensive in the country after “revival”.[xi] Close proximity to metro lines and urban cores is now more desirable than a good public school system and therefore worth paying for.[xii]  However for Blacks, these exact reasons- closeness to downtown and poor schools- are still used as negative factors when the desirability equation is applied to determine the value of Black property in Black areas. By analogy Black areas should be higher valued because they are also close to downtown Los Angeles/LA Live and USC, and will soon be stops along the new metro lines which caters to the exact same crowds as in San Francisco. Of course, Black areas are not valued more highly.

Black communities are always reported as having the lowest income in the country.[xiii] If an area is not making money or is full of poor people, the area will be determined to be “unproductive” and therefore worth less.

Supply is also a crucial factor in determining housing prices.   The overwhelming numbers of new urbanites flooding the urban areas is fueling numerous multi-unit housing construction projects. Sadly, it is a common sight now to see construction projects in a neighborhood where Blacks once lived. However the increase in multi-dwelling unit housing means that single family homes with a front yard and back yard will become scarcer. The amount of available land in a city area is limited. This means that our property values should be higher, and always should have been higher. Our land in the Black communities is a precious commodity that these new city dwellers are coveting. Unfortunately, they aren’t trying to pay Blacks a fair price.

Scarcity in affordable housing also plays a large role in the intentional devaluation of our neighborhoods. While the Westside, etc continues to skyrocket in value, our communities remain intentionally underdeveloped in order to serve as cheap housing for the new urbanites so they may profit from the depressed prices and the future expected profits out of urban renewal- aka the “fixer upper market”. The new urbanites mass movements into the urban areas at “unanticipated proportions”[xiv] increases the demand for affordable housing in Black areas. The result is additional and sustained pressure on Black communities as a resource for cheap housing. This increased pressure combined with a brutal police force creates the perfect recipe for relocation.[xv] Like the Los Angeles County area, San Francisco, CA, New York, NY, and Washington D.C. already had a shortage of affordable housing on the “white” side of town due to modern Jim-Crow.[xvi] Most of the property outside of the black areas was too expensive for people.[xvii] This left Black communities to provide affordable housing due to the scarcity of affordable housing elsewhere, such as Harlem, Brooklyn, Oakland, and all of DC except by Georgetown.

The result was the relocation of Blacks in New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle and Los Angeles.[xviii]

After relocation, in cities such as San Francisco, New York and Washington D.C., the property values skyrocket out of the reach of most Americans and these increased values are based partly on factors such as proximity to urban areas and metros.[xix]