Race, Place, and Segregation: Redrawing the Color Line in Our Nation's Metros
On November 16, 2001, CRP held its first conference on housing and civil rights, sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Joint Center for Housing Studies, and The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.
Professor Gary Orfield, Director of The Civil Rights Project (CRP) announced a collaboration between CRP, the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, CommUNITY 2000, and The Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, to produce 4 ground breaking housing studies on 3 significant metropolitan areas: Boston, Chicago, and San Diego. These studies examine the changing racial landscape as evidenced in the 2000 Census data.
A small number of communities are becoming increasingly white as gentrification is occurring and some multi-racial communities are developing. Within a rapidly changing metropolitan community, there are new possibilities and new risks. Communities need to address concerns about equity and access to adequate housing, transportation and employment opportunities, and to coordinate regionally to begin to deal effectively with a more complex metropolitan space.
Guy Stuart, a leading housing expert from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, sees serious consequences for school-age children: "The people most damaged by this dynamic are children who are separated from their peers of different races and ethnicities by school district boundaries and whose educational experience is stunted and narrowed as a result."
