The 1950s and 60s remain in the living memory of residents and church members of South Hills. This time is frequently described as a vibrant time in neighborhood life. The neighborhood was diverse, and residents threw block parties and hosted cake walks. Many elderly or older Dutch families lived alongside younger, new African American families.
Many African Americans originally moved to the South East Side in the early 1900s because they could afford to leave the West Side, but even though the Home Owners Loan Corporation of the New Deal clarified in the 1930s that “Negroes in the area are of a better type,” they gave the area the lowest security rating. Such ratings from the Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s affected African American access to housing across the country. A low rating affected your eligibility for federal assistance to purchase your home. You can look at some very interesting maps on
the subject here: Mapping
Inequality
 |
| Home Owners Loans Corporation, November 5, 1937. Clarifying Notes for the D4 area specify: "Negros of the area are of a better type. They are concentrated on Sherman, Bates, and Thomas between Union and Eastern Streets." |
Redlining, combined with realtor practices, deeply segregated our city and affected access to wealth on racial lines. The same New Deal program rated suburban neighborhoods with high security ratings, offering affordable loans for white residents of South Hills to move out to the suburbs. Susan D. Greenbaum’s article “Housing Abandonment in Inner-City Black Neighborhoods: A Case Study of the Effects of the Dual Housing Market” explains how perception of a place can affect the values of the properties: “If a banker believes that a property has less value solely because of the race of the occupant, then the real valuation of that property is less in fact” (140). While many whites were subsidized to invest in homes as population grew and the city expanded, African Americans were steered to buy homes or rent homes where value and safety were perceived to be less because of skin color.
In the last 10 years, the neighborhood has flipped. Many African Americans have moved away and young white families have moved in. We have the opposite of what we had in the 1950s and 1960s, where we have African Americans who have carried this place through the hardest times of the drug crisis living next to younger white singles and families hoping to build a future. Abandoned houses have been bought up and re-built, and rent prices in the neighborhood have been rising.
The story is of course, more complicated than that. More Latinos and Africans have joined the area. Indians and Middle Easterners own many of the stores on Eastern. The neighborhood is rather international, and gives me hope for what America could be. Or rather, the neighborhood is what America is. If we can work together to make sure this is a place that welcomes people regardless of skin color or bank account, perhaps America can too.
Please share your comments on what you remember about the neighborhood and ideas about what you think it will take to keep a neighborhood in which everyone belongs. If possible, be specific and name actions that you or someone you know can take.
Sources:
Greenbaum, Susan D. "Housing Abandonment in Inner City Black Neighborhoods: A
Case Study of the Effects of the Dual Housing Market." The Cultural Meaning of
Urban Space. Ed. Robert Rotenberg and Gary McDonough. Westport,
Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey, 1993. 139-56. Print.
Mapping Inequality: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=15/42.9507/-85.6532&opacity=0.8&city=grand-rapids-mi&sort=73&area=D4&adimage=3/39/-12
