Zipcode Apartheid - Thinking about location with THIS AMERICAN LIFE and wonder, "where do we go from here?"

                                               

I listened to This American Life yesterday as I went for an afternoon walk to process my week ahead. At the end of the show, they featured Ari Hest's The Landlord, a piece of music that caught my attention with its clever beat and rhythm.

The episode, House Rules, was interesting to listen to (I highly recommend it), especially with the engagement of the prologue about inequitable schools and a young woman's experience with attending affluent and poor classrooms. The first act on unfair rental policies in NYC is shocking, as well. Finally the research and exploration of Nikole Hannah-Jones in regard to racial 'red lining' in the housing market, shares a history of unfair practices in the United States and the reality that cities in the northeast remain more segregated than elsewhere, despite the claims of the people who typically argue otherwise. I've speculated this was the truth for some time. From the website,

Once the Fair Housing Act became law in 1968, there was some question about how to implement it and enforce it. George Romney, the former Republican Governor of Michigan and newly-appointed Secretary of HUG, was a true believer int he need to make the Fair Housing Law a powerful one - a robust attempt to change the course of the nation's racial segregation. Only problem was: President Richard Nixon didn't necessarily see it that way. 

Typically, fairness and equity are words used by liberal, democratic people and not attributed to the Republican party and their beliefs (even though, once upon a time, in was this party that fought to free slaves and to integrate the U.S. military). The case is made here, too, that Mitt Romney's father,  George, fought with all he had to stop racial segregation through America's housing laws, but was sidelined by the government and President. The argument is that integration may be more realized in the 21st century if the feds didn't make it so difficult.

Living in Connecticut, now, I can't help but question what's to be done to rectify this history. The report made me think about many discrepancies I've witnessed in my career, including the daily witnessing of achievement gaps along the zip codes I cross everyday. Seems to me an integrated school district and work force would be an answer, but this would require districts to align, join forces, and draw new territories that cultivate more heterogeneous communities. My fear is that what was enforced in the South was never the intention of those in the North.

It appears that we have an ultimate example of hypocrisy with this story, no?