Residential segregation wasn’t an accident — it was government policy

Residential racial segregation, in the US and in the Washington region, isn’t an accident. Common narratives have held that our neighborhoods are de facto segregated — in other words, that people have chosen to segregate themselves due to their personal racial and economic biases. But Richard Rothstein’s 2017 The Color of Law demonstrates how our federal, state, and local governments implemented de jure — legally recognized — segregation through policies like federal mortgage guarantees, and by shoring up de facto measures like racial covenants. According to The Color of Law, white and Black Americans are segregated not solely due to choices made by private individuals, but because of policies created and maintained by the government itself.

On Monday night, GGWash hosted a discussion of Rothstein’s much-lauded book about that government-sponsored, de jure segregation. Nearly 80 people joined us to explore the ways segregation has shaped the DC region, including two community planners from DC’s Office of Planning, Faith Broderick and Heba ElGawish.

Here are some of the themes of our discussion:

1. As in the rest of the US, our region was intentionally segregated by the government through the creation of exclusionary zoning laws, the subsidized construction of both public and private housing with strict racially restrictive covenants, and the construction of roadways like the Southeast Freeway (while white neighborhoods like Tenleytown and Mount Pleasant were spared).

2. Decisionmakers were fully aware of the effects of these policies while they were implementing them. Over generations, those effects have become even clearer. Residential segregation is effectively visually obvious. Further, access to quality education, food, health-care, clean air, outdoor space, and even life expectancy is skewed based on the ZIP code you grow up in.

3. We have a chance to directly address some of the exclusionary zoning practices Rothstein outlines by weighing in on the Comprehensive Plan, DC’s long-range development framework. The record closes today, December 3. we recommend writing to cow@dccouncil.us with the subject line “B23-736 Testimony” before 5 pm You’re welcome to borrow the language we’ve used for our asks (here!), but it’s most effective if you use your own words. Please cc me at abaca@ggwash.org, and email me directly if you have any questions.

The Comp Plan is the District’s foundational land use text; increasing density through the Comp Plan will not fully remedy the legacies of the racialized policies that Rothstein documents, but it will be much harder with the increased flexibility, and currency, that density—which is about the only thing the Comp Plan can govern—can bring.

If you missed our session, or want to go back and review it, you can watch a recording below.

For more information, check out these notes and resources I sent out in an email to attendees in advance of Monday’s event.

This was GGWash’s first virtual book discussion! We’ve gotten very positive feedback and hope to do it again. In the meantime, consider joining us at our CyberWashington bar hop this Friday at 5:30 pm.