LibGuides: One Book One San Diego 2023/2024: Housing Discrimination

Resources on Housing Discrimination

Some of the resources below require a PLNU OneLogin to access. For help accessing a resource, contact Librarian Robin Lang:

Encyclopedia Articles:

Housing Discrimination" in Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice
"Discrimination in Housing, Rent, Mortgages despite Fair Housing Laws" in Diversity: Understanding and Navigating Discrimination in America
"Redlining" in Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedias in Social Sciences: The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies
"Redlining" in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography
"Fair Housing Act" in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
"Blockbusting" and in Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedias in Social Sciences: The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles:

Urban Space, Restrictive Covenants and the Origins of Racial Residential Segregation in a US City, 1900–50 Abstract: "this article examines the organized efforts of community builders and homeowner associations to create racially homogeneous neighborhoods through the use and enforcement of racially restrictive covenants."
Black Residential Segregation Since the 1948 Shelley V. Kraemer Decision Abstract: The author "demonstrates that in major metropolitan areas generally, and more specifically in St. Louis and Detroit, blacks have made very little headway in reducing segregation in housing since the 1948 decision. He states that, despite the removal of racially restrictive covenants, blacks continue to be highly segregated residentially and that new kinds of restrictions have replaced covenants."
Land Speculation and Suburban Covenants: Racial Capitalism and the Pre-Redlining Roots of Housing Segregation in Syracuse, New York Abstract: "This article extends the historical timeline in studies of residential segregation, provides clarity on dispossession and housing inequity in small and mid-sized cities, and contributes to understanding how processes of racial capitalism operate through private real estate markets."
The origins and diffusion of racial restrictive covenants Abstract: "The writer examines the origins and diffusion of racial restrictive covenants in the early 20th century."
Covenants without Courts: Enforcing Residential Segregation with Legally Unenforceable Agreements Abstract: "Widely acknowledged for facilitating residential segregation, the Supreme Court ruled covenants unenforceable in 1948. Yet they remained legal to write and reference, allowing realtors, banks, insurers, title companies and government agencies to continue to rely on unenforceable covenants in their decisions and policies. Beyond legal enforceability, covenants were essentially signals that coordinated the behavior of a variety of private individual and institutional actors--signals that remained effective without the courts."
The misunderstood consequences of Shelley v. Kraemer Abstract: "Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) was a landmark civil rights ruling, in which the Supreme Court held that private racial covenants could not be enforced by the state to evict black buyers of “restricted” homes. Fair housing scholars have generally dismissed or downplayed the practical effects of Shelley, since other forms of housing discrimination remained very powerful. Using spatial lag models and detailed geographic data on the location of covenants and patterns of intra-urban black migration, we compare the role of Shelley with other forces shaping mid-century neighborhood change. "

Websites and Newspaper Articles:

It's harder to buy a house. This city fought back by outbidding corporate landlords From NPR.
Mapping Inequality: Redlining Maps Find interactive redlining maps nationwide.
You may never look at the Sports Arena the same again
MUST READ: This article is about a neighborhood called Frontier that used to be in the Sports Arena/Midway area of Point Loma. Racist neighbors in the Loma Portal neighborhood complained about the integrated Frontier neighborhood and eventually the City of San Diego tore the neighborhood down.
Do you keep or remove the racially restrictive covenant attached to your home? This article from KPBS covers evidence of racial covenants on properties in San Diego and includes interviews with homeowners about whether or not to remove these clauses from their grant deedds.
Black and Latino residents burned out of Palm Springs seek city reparations from the LA Times
California Panel Sizes Up Reparations for Black Citizens From the New York Times
The Black family who won the return of Bruce's Beach will sell it back to LA County "Nearly 100 years ago, a local government in Southern California took Bruce's Beach away from its Black owners because of the color of their skin."
City National Bank accused of racial bias in L.A. home loans Los Angeles Times article from January 2023
In historic move, county removes barrier to tribal land expansion Article from the San Diego Union Tribune on a recent lift of a ban on American Indian tribal land expansion.
The Palm Springs Government Burned Down Their Neighborhood — Now They're Seeking Reparations April 2023
DOJ announces a $31 million redlining settlement with LA-based City National Bank
more...less...
NPR article from Jan. 2023

Search Terms

If you're interested in learning more about housing discrimination in American history, considering using the below search terms in library's article search box or several different library databases, to learn more:

HOUSING discrimination

Race discrimination in housing

Fair Housing Act of 1968 (U.S.)

Covenants (Law)

Deeds (Law)

REAL covenants

Racial Covenants

Racial covenants are restrictive clauses added to original land grant deeds prohibiting certain people from purchasing the property, and in some cases, even residing on the property, unless as a hired employee. Racial covenants were outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1948, but were never officially removed from grant deeds and some grant deeds after 1948 continued to include them.

To see an example of a racial clause on a land grant deed in San Diego County, see: Original 1947 Grant Deed with Racial Clause

From Lassiter, M. D. (2010). Suburbs and politics. In M. Kazin (Ed.), The Princeton encyclopedia of American political history. Princeton University Press.

“By the 1920s, real estate developers and homeowners associations promoted restrictive covenants in most new subdivisions, often specifically excluding occupancy by African Americans, Asians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, American Indians, and Jews. The NAACP repeatedly challenged the constitutionality of racial covenants during the early decades of the modern civil rights movement, but the Supreme Court continued to permit their enforcement until the Shelley v. Kraemer decision of 1948” .

"Shelley v. Kraemer found that racial covenants violate the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states 'no state. . . [shall] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'”

Redlining Map of San Diego

This redlining map for the City of San Diego from 1935 shows 'grades' given to neighborhoods based on perceived risks to banks offering mortgages. Typically, banks would not lend to homebuyers trying to purchase properties in the 'red' neighborhoods and Black homebuyers, and other people of color, were prevented from obtaining mortgages for properties in 'green' neighborhoods.

The website Mapping Inequality allows you to zoom into different regions in the country to view redlining maps for different municipalities. To view maps, visit: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/39.1/-94.58.

(To view a larger version of the map, click on the map below.)

(Nelson, R. K., Winling, L., Marciano, R., & Connolly, N. (1935). Street map of the City of San Diego. Mapping Inequality. https://s3.amazonaws.com/holc/tiles/CA/SanDiego/1938/holc-scan.jpg)

Some Solutions to Correct Housing Discrimination

Educate ourselves on racial covenants, redlining, and other discriminatory housing practices
Donate to entities like the San Diego Black Homebuyers Program, which helps Black people in San Diego put together a downpayment on a home
Legislation, voting, and community activism:
- Support Rent control
- Support use of community land trusts to fund residential housing in the form of housing co-ops
- Support giving home sellers incentives to sell to buyers who are already from the community and who aren’t necessarily the highest bidder
- Support better housing development policies, such as more affordable housing requirements for all new multi-unit building projects
- Support restrictions on flipping houses
Be a good neighbor