Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Real estate blockbusting, pervasive in many American cities in the post-World War II period, is the intentional action of a real estate broker to place an African American resident in a previously all-white neighborhood for the express purpose of the excessive profit to be made by panicking whites into selling low, then in turn charging marked-up prices to incoming minority residents ( Helper 1969 ). The Civil Rights Act (Fair Housing Act) of 1968 declared it an illegal practice “for profit, to induce or attempt to induce” sales and rentals “by representations regarding the entry or prospective entry into the neighborhood of [a] person or persons of a particular race, color, religion, etc.” (Section 804 [e]). The 1968 Act, which declared discrimination in residential sales, rentals, or loans illegal, specifically outlawed blockbusting and indirectly barred other discriminatory real estate practices, including steering and redlining. Rigid adherence to residential segregation designed to maintain a racially separated (dual) housing market paradoxically enabled blockbusting to flourish under certain circumstances. Typically, blockbusters preyed upon the racial prejudices and fears of white residents in segregated neighborhoods by selling or renting to African Americans – or even by spreading rumors of black settlement – to panic property owners unwilling to accept residential integration. ... log in or subscribe to read full text