Reflections on the Persistence of Racial Segregation in Housing

This article is Weinstein's reflection on the Annual Sullivan Lecture entitled Crossing Two Color Lines: Interracial Marriage and Residential Segregation in Chicago by Dorothy E. Roberts (2016).

INTRODUCTION My reflection on Professor Roberts' Sullivan Lecture poses two questions. First, how far have we come as a nation from the hypersegregated housing patterns of the 1930s through 1960s that Professor Roberts described in her lecture? Regrettably, the answer appears to be not far at all. Further, we are today faced with a second form of hypersegregation, one based on income rather than race. Second, why have we made so little progress to date in addressing housing segregation The simple answer here, of course, is that efforts to address the situation Professor Roberts describes have proved inadequate. But why? While a comprehensive answer to that question is well beyond the scope of this writing, the author examines why one of the efforts has proven inadequate: the attempts to combat "exclusionary zoning."