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Tents in Resurrection City in Washington D.C., a protest encampment on the National Mall.

The Poverty of Homeownership

On both sides of the color line, to own one’s home remains synonymous with freedom—even as real estate has proven itself to be relentlessly unequal.
by David Helps via Public Books on December 4, 2024
Herbert Hoover breaking ground on a model home in front of a crowd.
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Home Sweet Home

On the early years of the real estate industry, and the racist effort to convince white Americans to buy single-family homes.
by Adrienne Brown via HNN on June 20, 2024
Bylaw excerpt of racial restrictions in housing.
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A New Law Addresses the Harm Done by Decades of Racist Housing Practices

The Washington state law provides low-interest loans for down payments for those harmed by racially restrictive covenants.
by James N. Gregory via Made By History on May 10, 2023
A collage shows a white hand segregating Black Americans.

No Breakthrough in Sight

More than fifty years after the Fair Housing Act, inequality and segregation persists. What went wrong?
by Kaila Philo via The Baffler on May 9, 2023
South Front Street House, Philadelphia, PA (credit LOC).

Black Homeownership Before World War II

From the 1920s-1940s, North, West, and South Philadelphia saw its Black population increase by 50-80% as white flight occurred.
by Menika Dirkson via Black Perspectives on March 29, 2023
A picture of an eerie dark house.

This House Is Still Haunted: An Essay In Seven Gables

A spectre is haunting houses—the spectre of possession.
by Adam Fales via Dilettante Army on February 15, 2022
An illustration from a book of homes published by a Pennsylvania lumber company in 1920

The Latent Racism of the Better Homes in America Program

How Better Homes in America—a collaboration between Herbert Hoover and the editor of a conservative women’s magazine—promoted idealized whiteness.
by Manisha Claire via JSTOR Daily on February 26, 2020

Greater Homeownership isn’t the Answer to Ending Wealth Inequality

Black Americans have just one-tenth of the wealth of white Americans, and the difference in home values is a big part of the problem.
by Eshe Nelson via Quartz on April 19, 2018
The Henry Rutgers Houses, a public housing development built and maintained by the New York City Housing Authority.
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The False Promise of Homeownership

Instead of boosting the American Dream, policies encouraging homeownership exacerbate inequality.
by Marisa Chappell via Made By History on July 20, 2017

The Case for Reparations

Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on June 23, 2014
Fannie Mae sign.

Fannie, Freddie, and the Destructive Dream of the 'Ownership Society'

Unwinding the mortgage giants won't cure Americans of their desire to own a home, whether they can afford it or not.
by Zachary Karabell via The Atlantic on August 10, 2013
Old abandoned cabin in field.
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Creaky Boards and Cobwebs

The history of haunted houses in the movies.
via BackStory on June 7, 2013
An aerial view of houses in Jersey City, United States on July 13, 2024.

Is The ‘Predatory’ Property Tax An Instrument Of Oppression?

According to Andrew Kahrl, the property tax has been used to disposs black homeowners since the 19th century.
by Joseph J. Thorndike via Forbes on March 24, 2025
A person carrying a table into a moving van.

Why American Mobility Ground to a Halt

Once a nation of movers, the US has lost its “culture of mobility,” a new book argues. That’s been a disaster for housing affordability and economic progress.
by Yoni Appelbaum, Patrick Sisson via CityLab on February 12, 2025
Boylston Street, Jamaica Plain, Boston, a residential street with a bike lane and a Black Lives Matter sign.

My Street Looks Different Now: Oral History and the Anti-Redlining Movement

For residents, organizers, and onlookers, neighborhoods can be a window for witnessing and making sense of history.
by Joshua Rosen via The Metropole on October 8, 2024
Aerial view of the suburbs.

How Racist Policies Destroyed Public Housing and Created the American Suburbs

The systematic post-war displacement of communities of color.
by Tracy Rosenthal, Leonardo Vilchis via Literary Hub on September 25, 2024
Chicago Workers' Cottages.

Chicago Workers Cottages Gave Immigrants Access to Homeownership

The cottages’ modest design provided entry-level homes after the Great Chicago Fire.
by Zach Mortice via CityLab on July 28, 2024
Blue-print style sketch of a suburban home, with sidewalk, driveway, and garage

How the Suburbs Became a Trap

Neighborhoods that once promised prosperity now offer crumbling infrastructure, aged housing stock, and social animus.
by Caitlin Zaloom via The New Republic on April 18, 2024
Book cover of Counterrevolution by Melinda Cooper.

A Tax Haven in a Heartless World: On Melinda Cooper’s “Counterrevolution”

Why should taxpayers fund schools that violate their own values, the Moms for Liberty wonder? A new book traces how this kind of thinking about public spending came to be.
by Sarah Brouillette via Los Angeles Review of Books on April 15, 2024
Painting of a square, white, house surrounded by trees, shrubbery, and a sidewalk.

Chicago Dream Houses

How a mid-century architecture competition reimagined the American home.
by Siobhan Moroney via Belt Magazine on January 29, 2024
An American World War II veteran salutes on a beach during the 1994 anniversary commemorations for the invasion of Normandy.

Let’s Give Black World War II Vets What We Promised

The G.I. Bill created a prosperous middle class that was altogether too white.
by Timothy Noah via The New Republic on November 10, 2023
Christopher Newport University.

Erasing the “Black Spot”: How a Virginia College Expanded by Uprooting a Black Neighborhood

Sixty-plus years ago, the white leaders of Newport News, Virginia, seized the core of a thriving Black community to build a college.
by Brandi Kellam, Louis Hansen via ProPublica on September 5, 2023
Bars labeled First through Fourth depicting risk levels for housing loans.

The Shame of the Suburbs

How America gave up on housing equality.
by David Denison via The Baffler on May 9, 2023
Postwar photograph of a white family holding hands, looking at a new suburban house for sale.
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Whites-Only Suburbs: How the New Deal Shut Out Black Homebuyers

Race-based federal lending rules from New Deal programs kept Black families out of suburban neighborhoods, a policy that continues to slow economic mobility.
via Retro Report on November 3, 2022
Map of Moreno Valley.

The Blackest City

Not just in Riverside, but in all of the Inland Empire!
by Candice Mays via Mapping Black California on October 18, 2022
A Black man sits at his dining room looking through property records

Racial Covenants, a Relic of the Past, Are Still on the Books Across the Country

Racial covenants made it illegal for Black people to live in white neighborhoods. Now they're illegal, but you may still have one on your home's deed.
by Natalie Y. Moore via NPR on November 17, 2021
A black and white photo of new suburban homes, 1963.

When Real Estate Agents Led the Fight Against Fair Housing

A new book argues that the real estate industry’s campaign to defend housing segregation still echoes in today’s politics.
by Gene Slater, Patrick Sisson via CityLab on September 28, 2021
A small cabin in the woods; Laird Sutton, a man with a thick white beard.

The Last Glimpses of California's Vanishing Hippie Utopias

A legion of idealists dropped out of society and went back to the land. Here's a glimpse of their otherworldly residences—and the end of the social experiment.
by David Jacob Kramer via GQ on September 9, 2021
Margaret Watson, 93, touches a section of the Birwood Wall that runs behind her house

Built to Keep Black From White

Eighty years after a segregation wall rose in Detroit, America remains divided. That's not an accident.
by Erin Einhorn, Olivia Lewis via NBC News on July 19, 2021
Janet Robinson and Yolanda Grayson King inside Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church

In Virginia, a Historic Black Neighborhood Grapples With Whether to Grow

Some in The Settlement, founded by formerly enslaved people, say development should be allowed to create generational Black wealth while others disagree.
by Antonio Olivo via Washington Post on July 18, 2021
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