Race and Real Estate

Catalog description

The objective of this course is to understand the laws and policies, politics and financial systems in our country that established and sustained segregation, creating our cities' black slums, ghettos and urban neighborhoods. The course would address federal, state and local legal systems, with particular emphasis on Illinois and Chicago. It would cover the Fair Housing Act as well as the Kerner Report; FHA policies, including the Underwriting Manuals that led to redlining; zoning laws and urban planning; public housing and HUD's HOPE VI program; the legality of restrictive covenants; as well as case law related to each of these areas. And finally, this course would address where this has led us to today: the policies, laws and regulations that have attempted to reverse segregation, and those that continue to allow discrimination to continue by exploiting and financially devastating minority neighborhoods.