Segregation? Here? That’s in the Past, Right?
Today, Palo Alto is 2% Black and 6% Latine, though California is 6% Black and 40% Latine.
Why is this? The question is not academic. In August, when the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) rejected Palo Alto’s Housing Element for the second time, it told the city to “examine past land use practices” that affect fair housing today.
To its credit, the city has already begun this critical task. The “Assessment of Fair Housing” in its latest Housing Element finds:
Patterns of racial segregation are the byproduct of local and federal policies, private housing discrimination, and community prejudice. To understand present challenges to fair housing, it is necessary to review the history of actions that have led regional patterns of segregation. … In Palo Alto, a history of government and individual racism led to racial segregation between Palo Alto and adjacent East Palo Alto.
In the last few years, many Palo Altans have worked to tell this story, including the city’s Human Relations Commission, Palo Alto Weekly, Gunn High School Oracle, and Palo Alto High School Campanile. These efforts build on A Centennial History by the Palo Alto Historical Association (1993), The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (2017), and the website Palo Alto History. Also instructive is the chapter on housing segregation in this summer’s Report by the State of California’s Reparations Task Force.
This blog post summarizes the stratagems of the past that contribute to the housing patterns of today. These include exclusionary zoning, racial covenants, redlining, housing discrimination, and blockbusting.Today’s Palo Altans believe in equal housing opportunity for all. To fully achieve this worthy goal, we must reckon with the past and how it frames the present.
Exclusionary Zoning, Discrimination by Another Name
In 1920, the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution calling for a “segregated district for the Oriental and colored people of the city.”
Fortunately, this never happened. Unfortunately, Palo Altans of a century ago used a different means to accomplish the same goal: exclusionary zoning. So did policymakers across the country. As our city recently explained in its Assessment of Fair Housing:
In the early 1920s, cities in the Bay Area began adopting zoning ordinances which led to the establishment of exclusive single-family home zones. By establishing specific areas of cities which did not allow more affordable housing types, cities began to be more segregated based on class and race/ethnicity. … Historical evidence shows that these zoning regulations intentionally segregated communities, enforcing racially motivated biases against targeted groups.
Our state’s Reparations Task Force recently made similar findings:
After the Supreme Court declared explicit racial zoning unconstitutional in 1917, city officials developed new strategies to segregate African American residents from white residents by neighborhood. … City officials zoned neighborhoods for single family homes … This prevented apartment complexes from being built, which effectively kept out African Americans who were less likely to afford single family homes.
Today, exclusionary zoning is increasingly recognized by policymakers as a means of discrimination rearing its ugly head. Exclusionary zoning laws place restrictions on the types of homes that can be built in a particular neighborhood with minimum lot size requirements, minimum square footage requirements, prohibitions on multi-family homes, and limits on the height of buildings. Some zoning laws have been used to discriminate against those with lower incomes and people of color in order to maintain property prices in suburban and, more recently, urban neighborhoods.
Racial Covenants
After 1925, many housing subdivisions in Palo Alto contained racial covenants. These typically stated: “No person not wholly of the white Caucasian race shall use or occupy such property unless such persons are employed as servants …”
In 1943, Palo Alto’s local NAACP branch reported that the city’s Black population had almost doubled during World War Two – yet only ten additional houses were available for these newcomers. In 1946, the celebrated chemist Art Fong couldn’t buy a home within the city limits. Racial covenants slammed doors.
Redlining
From the 1930s through the 1960s, federal agencies supported home ownership by promising banks to pay back mortgages if borrowers defaulted – but only for white borrowers. The Federal Housing Administration’s Underwriting Manual warned against loans in neighborhoods with “inharmonious racial groups.” Likewise, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation drew hundreds of urban maps marking white neighborhoods in green, signifying safe for loans, and Black neighborhoods in red, signifying risky for loans. This is the origin of the term “redlining.” Without federal loan guarantees, banks generally would not loan to buyers in Black neighborhoods, or buyers who crossed the color line.
For example, soon after World War Two, an interracial housing cooperative planned a development of 400 homes next to Stanford’s campus. But banks refused loans, because the FHA refused to insure them, because some residents were Black. Stymied, the cooperative sold the land. A new developer agreed to the FHA’s insistence on an all-white community, and built the Ladera subdivision.
Housing Discrimination
Thankfully, U.S. laws have shifted dramatically in favor of equal housing opportunity. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution forbids judicial enforcement of racial covenants. In 1962, President Kennedy issued an executive order that ended redlining. In 1968, Congress banned discrimination in the sale, rental, and finance of homes.
Still, housing discrimination continued. In 1952, a survey by the Palo Alto Fair Play Committee found that 68 Palo Altans would rent to non-whites, while 198 would not. In 1971 and again two decades later, “testers” sent by the Midpeninsula Citizens for Fair Housing revealed that some Palo Alto landlords would rent the same home to a white applicant but not to a similar Black applicant.
Real estate professionals of that era did not hide what they were up to. In 1948, the president of the Palo Alto Real Estate Board said: “Most of the minority groups do not want to live in sections where they are not wanted any more than the prospective seller wants to get them in if the adjacent property owners are unfriendly to the proposal.” In 1956, the president of Palo Alto’s Board of Realtors said: “If you do sell to Negroes, everyone else is down your throat.”
Blockbusting
In 1956, a Black family managed to buy a home in an all-white area of East Palo Alto. The president of the California Real Estate Association warned white neighbors that an imminent “Negro invasion” would reduce their property values. This triggered panic sales at steep discounts to speculators, who then directed ads to “Colored Buyers.” Black families paid inflated prices, because given the barriers discussed above, they had few choices. Within six years, the city was 82% Black. Today, it is 71% Black and Latine.
This pernicious practice, called “blockbusting,” was common nationwide in the 1950s through the 1970s.
Lost Intergenerational Wealth
In the twentieth century, there was a boom in home ownership. Today, many people enjoy intergenerational wealth, and find it easier to buy homes, because their parents and grandparents bought homes.
But Black and Latine people missed out on much of this boom, because of the barriers discussed above. Today’s home ownership rate is 75% for white households, compared to 45% for Black households and 48% for Latine households. Thus, it is not sufficient to end discriminatory housing practices. It is also necessary to remedy their lingering consequences.
Moving FORWARD Together
California law requires cities to “affirmatively further fair housing,” defined as “meaningful actions … that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics.” This law builds on the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, and incorporates a robust Obama-era federal rule.
How do we affirmatively further fair housing in Palo Alto? We can all be proud of the progress we’ve made. For example, racial covenants and redlining are now illegal. And our City Council is committed to fostering inclusiveness, equity, and a sense of belonging.
Still, a big task remains: we must end exclusionary zoning. It can cost $3 million to buy a home in Palo Alto, and $4,000 per month to rent one. Given our nation’s continuing racial gap in earnings and savings, such housing costs make it disproportionately hard for Black and Latine people to live here. These high housing costs are the inevitable consequence of zoning that makes it exceedingly difficult to build the kinds of homes that generally are more affordable, such as ADUs, duplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, and apartments.
Now is the time to rewrite Palo Alto’s land-use ordinances, allow denser housing that is more affordable, and thereby ensure that people of all incomes and races can be our neighbors.