Learning Objectives:
Students will be able to understand how housing segregation led to educational segregation and how schools were used to segregate cities.
Students will be able to understand the mechanisms that the federal government, real estate agents, and city planners used to segregate urban and metropolitan America.
Students will be able to understand how K-12 schools and city planning affected higher education policy and housing.
Podcast Questions:
How did schools become intertwined with cities beyond providing children with an education?
How did city planners help segregate urban and metropolitan America? Ideas/policies to consider:
- Racial theory of property values
- Role of the federal government (HOLC & FHA)
- Real estate agents
- City officials and zoning policies
- Schools
Walter Stern mentions that “racism is sort of the obvious answer, but doesn’t really actually tell us that much.” Elaborate on what you think Stern means by this and why. Consider some of the themes mentioned above.
What were “Race Neutral” zoning policies, and how did they promote racial segregation without explicitly using racial segregation? How do these policies still manifest today?
How did these policies in K-12 and city planning effect UW and higher education more broadly?
Primary Sources:
Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America. Visit Website Here
“The Neighborhood Unit Plan.” View Plan Here
1936 Federal Housing Authority Underwriting Manual. Read Source Here
Recommended Readings:
Chapter Three “Blacks and Jews” in Stern, Walter. Race and Education in New Orleans: Creating the Segregated City, 1764-1960. Louisiana State University Press, 2018. Read Book Here
Other Resources:
Sifting and Reckoning Online Exhibit. “Housing.” View Website Here
Primary Source Citations
Nelson, Robert K., LaDale Winling, et al. “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America.” Edited by Robert K. Nelson. American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History, 2023. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining.
Clarence Arthur Perry, “The Neighborhood Unit,” in Regional Survey of New York and Its Environs, vol. 7. New York: Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, 1929.
U.S. Federal Housing Administration. Underwriting Manual: Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act U.S. Government Printing Office, 1936.