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

 

[i] For example in January 2016, a home in lower Santa Monica was worth an average of $1.6 million while in North Inglewood the average home was $349,000. Inglewood, Inglewood CA Housing, Market, Schools and Neighborhoods, Realty.com, January 2016, http://www.realty.com/local/Inglewood-_Inglewood_CA. See also Jed Kolko, “Top 10 Least and Most Expensive Housing Markets for Today’s Middle Class”, Forbes online, May 14, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/trulia/2014/05/14/top-10-least-and-most-expensive-housing-markets-for-todays-middle-class/#5221ee3f63f6; Jana Kasperkevic, “Too Damn High- Manhattan’s Average Apartment Prices Reach Record of $1.87 Million”, The Guardian, US Edition, July 1, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/01/manhattan-new-york-apartment-rent-prices-record-high; Dan Burrows, “Most Expensive Cities in the United States to Live 2017”, Kiplinger.com, May 2017, http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/real-estate/T006-S001-most-expensive-u-s-cities-to-live-in-2017/index.html

[ii] Isn’t it funny how “urban” once meant black and now it will mean white and/or homosexual urbanite?

[iii] Among the people who are returning are decedents from white flight. People who lived in segregated suburbs or the “white” side of Jim Crow Los Angeles. Further, there has always been racism among whites on the “Westide” areas who would like to return to a segregated Los Angeles. Know of any team owner/developers who may have fit this description??? There are also such segregationist in San Francisco. Developers are fueling the relocation/property boom as well. Some developer firm have invested billions and decades into redoing the urban cores where Blacks disappear. Until we actually address all aspects of relocation including all groups’ role in relocation, it will continue at alarming speeds. In California it is not just the usual Republican Regeanites who are displacing blacks. So are “liberal” white groups who consider themselves Democrats. It is common knowledge that the coastal areas of California vote blue. However blacks are relocating east out of the blue areas.

[iv] For example the NYPD stop and frisk policy- Beginning at least 15 years ago, NYPD terrorized mostly Blacks (54-57%), where the black population was continuously decreasing. “Stop and Frisk Data”, New York Civil Liberties Union, https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data. Between 2003 and 2012, NYPD targeted Harlem’s and Central Brooklyn’s black populations. The number of stop and frisks of residents for “suspicious” behavior drastically increased, and peaked in January 2012. Mike Bostock and Ford Fersseden, “Stop and Frisk Is All But Gone From New York”, New York Times, September 19, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/19/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-is-all-but-gone-from-new-york.html. In January 2012 NYPD performed over 15,000 stops per week. Ibid. Most persons stopped were Black and innocent. In 2003, 87% of persons stopped were innocent, 54% were Black, 31% were Latino, 12% were white, and 55% between the ages of 14-24. New York Civil Liberties Union, “Stop and Frisk Data.

This trend of targeting blacks continues until today. In 2017 first quarter, 57% of the stops were Black persons. Mid-2012 saw an extreme drop in the number of stop and frisk encounters but the percentage of Blacks stopped remained the same, 54-57%. The increase and drop in the number of stops coincides with the removal of Blacks from Harlem and Brooklyn and the transition period from a majority Black Harlem to the current majority white Harlem. By 2010, Harlem was majority white. Sam Roberts, “White Population Rises in Manhattan”, New York Times, July 4, 2010. https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/white-population-rises-in-manhattan/; Sam Roberts, “No Longer Majority Black, Harlem in in Transition”, New York Times, January 5, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/nyregion/06harlem.html.

Therefore NYPD was and is increasing pressure on an ever-shrinking Black population while whites poured into the newly vacated areas.   If this is not the police relocating blacks for white encroachment I don’t know what is. The black population of the Bronx may be under siege now by NYPD as Brooklyn has already become too expensive. See Copwatchers documentary; See also Steven Rosenfeld, “Is Gentrification Fueling Police Brutality in San Francisco?”, Alternet, May 15, 2015, http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/gentrification-fueling-police-brutality-san-francisco.

[v] Angel Jennings, “Downtown Development Boom Set To Move Into South Central L.A. As City Approves Controversial High Rise Complex”, Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-reef-development-20161122-story.html; “Controversial ‘Reef’ Project In South LA Get Green Light From City”, The Open Daily Los Angeles, November 23, 2016, http://www.theopendaily.com/business/controversial-reef-project-in-south-la-gets-green-light-from-city. The prices are only increasing as are the rents. Kerri Anne Renzulli, “10 Most Expensive Cities To Be A Renter”, Time.com, April 8, 2016, http://time.com/money/4287132/most-expensive-cities-to-rent; David Davis, “The End Zone Is Near- The Rams Come Full Circle, and So Does Inglewood”, Los Angeles Magazine, March 2016.

[vi] Kolko, “Top 10 Least and Most Expensive Housing Markets for Today’s Middle Class.”; Quoctrung Bui and Conor Dougherty, “Good Schools, Affordable Homes, Finding the Suburban Sweet Spot,” New York Times, March 3, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/30/upshot/good-schools-affordable-homes-suburban-sweet-spots.html.

[vii] Kerri Anne Renzulli, “10 Most Expensive Cities To Be A Renter”, Time.com, April 8, 2016, http://time.com/money/4287132/most-expensive-cities-to-rent; Burrows, “Most Expensive Cities in the United States to Live 2017”; Kolko, “Top 10 Least and Most Expensive Housing Markets for Today’s Middle Class.”

[viii] Realty.com, January 2016, www.Realty.com; “Inglewood, California (CA) Zip Code Map- Locations and Demographics 90301”, City-data.com, http://www.city-data.com/zips/90301.html; http://www.city-data.com/city/Inglewood-California.html

[ix] The author of this article, Katherine Burns, is an attorney. My father was also an attorney. My mother has a master’s degree in pedagogy and curriculum building.

[x] Which groups are moving in large numbers into the “renewed” urban areas? According to the US Census Bureau, countless mainstream media articles and personal observation it is a combination of groups that are moving into the urban areas at “unanticipated proportions” looking for cheap housing, including but not limited to, the white hipster/techies, white millennials and their parents, white homosexuals of both genders and other groups and white heterosexuals of both genders and political groups- sometimes called “young professionals”. See e.g., Sam Frizell, “The New American Dream Is Living In A City, Not Owning A House In The Suburbs”, Time, April 25, 2014, http://time.com/72281/american-housing/.

[xi] Quoctrung Bui and Conor Dougherty, “Good Schools, Affordable Homes, Finding the Suburban Sweet Spot.”

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Ben Casselan, “Feel That Post-Recession Bounce? The Rich Feel It the Most”, New York Times, September 27, 2017 (data released from the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer finances found despite modest gains between 2013-2016, the racial wealth gap remains large and continues to grow in absolute terms. The medium white family had a net worth if $171,000 in 2016, nearly 10 times that of the medium Black family); Tracy Jan, “White People Are Really Confident That Things Are Getting Better For Black People.”, Washington Post, September 18, 2017, https://washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/18/white-people-are-really-confident-things-are-getting-better-for-black-people/?utm_term=d5db46d4485e; Heather Long, “U.S. Middle-Class Incomes Reached Highest-Ever Level in 2016, Census Bureau Says”, Washington Post, September 12, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com. (US Census data shows the overall medium household income hit a high of $59,039 in 2016, but incomes in Black households still lag behind where they were in 2000. According to US Census, in 2016 the medium Africa American household earned only $39,490 compared with $65,041 for non-hispanic whites, $47,675 for Hispanics/Latinos, and $81,431 for Asians.); For example in January 2016, a home in lower Santa Monica is worth an average of $1.6 million while in North Inglewood the average home is $349,000. Realty.com, Inglewood, Inglewood CA Housing, Market, Schools and Neighborhoods.

[xiv] “Americans are experiencing an urban renaissance of unanticipated proportions, as young people graduate college and flock to the cities…for millennials today, leaving Levittown for the bright lights of downtown has become a right of passage…the high demand for city living has led to a wave of high-rise construction projects across the country, in cities such as New York and San Francisco.” Frizell, “The New American Dream Is Living In A City, Not Owning A House In The Suburbs.”

[xv] See Rosenfeld, “Is Gentrification Fueling Police Brutality in San Francisco?.”

[xvi] For example in January 2016, a home in lower Santa Monica is worth an average of $1.6 million while in North Inglewood the average home is $349,000. Realty.com, “Inglewood, Inglewood CA Housing, Market, Schools and Neighborhoods.”

[xvii] Blacks should NOT have to pay the price each time. If whites wanted to make the westside so expensive, then they should have to pay westside prices here.

[xviii] Natalie Hopskinson “Farewell, Chocolate City”, New York Times, June 3, 2012; “San Francisco’s Black Population Dwindling”, The Seattle Times, May 11, 2015, http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/san-franciscos-black-population-dwindling/; Nadre Nittle, “Will San Francisco’s Black Population Vanish as City’s Wealth Rises?”, Atlanta Black Star, October 13, 2015, http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/10/13/will-san-franciscos-black-population-vanish-citys-wealth-rises/; Jaithe Har, “San Francisco’s Housing Shortage Threatens African Americans”, Seattle Times, December 28, 2015, http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/san-franciscos-housing-shortage-threatens-african-americans; Thomas Fuller, “The Loneliness of Being Black in San Francisco”, New York Times, July 20, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/black-exodus-from-san-francisco.html; Roberts, “White Population Rises in Manhattan”; Roberts, “No Longer Majority Black, Harlem in in Transition”. See also Gene Balk, “As Seattle Gets Richer, the City’s Black Households Get Poorer”, The Seattle Times, November 12, 2014, http://blogs.seattletimes.com/fyi-guy/2014/11/12/as-seattle-gets-richer-the-citys-black-households-get-poorer/.

[xix] See Kolko, “Top 10 Least and Most Expensive Housing Markets for Today’s Middle Class”; Quoctrung Bui and Conor Dougherty, “Good Schools, Affordable Homes, Finding the Suburban Sweet Spot,”.

[xx] Andrew Khouri, “Downtown Los Angeles Hasn’t Seen This Much Construction Since the 1920s”, Los Angeles Times, January 8, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-downtown-boom-20161130-story.html; Roger Vincent, “In L.A’s Broadway Theater District, Chinese Developer Builds Condos Priced For the First Time Buyer”, Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2017; http://latimes.com/business.

[xxi] Khouri, “Downtown Los Angeles Hasn’t Seen This Much Construction Since the 1920s”.

[xxii] Ibid.

[xxiii] Carmel Patners website. https://www.carmelpartners.com/property/atelier/

[xxiv] Carmel Partners website. https://www.carmelpartners.com/the-funds/. Carmel Partners has either developed or in the process of developing 19 large apartment complexes in Northern California/San Francisco. That’s 31 properties just in CA.

[xxv] Vincent, “In L.A’s Broadway Theater District, Chinese Developer Builds Condos Priced For the First Time Buyer”.

[xxvi] Gale Holland and Doug Smith, “Los Angeles County’s Homelessness Jumps A “Staggering 23%” As Need Far Outpaces Housing, A New Count Shows”, Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-count-20170530-story.html; Gale Holland and Peter Jamison, “Los Angeles Sees Another Sharp Rise in Homelessness and Outdoor Tents”, Los Angeles Times, May 4, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow; Thomas Gaist and Marc Wells, “Homelessness Sharply Increases In Los Angeles County”, World Socialist Web Site, June 9, 2017, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/09/home-j09.html.

[xxvii] Gale Holland and Doug Smith, “Los Angeles County’s Homelessness Jumps A “Staggering 23%” As Need Far Outpaces Housing, A New Count Shows.”

 

 

 

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