The Rationale for Including Disadvantaged Communities in the Smart Growth Metropolitan Development Framework (original) (raw)

2002, Yale Law & Policy Review

While Brown v. Board of Education marked the beginning of the end of de jure discrimination in American society,' the decision did not lead to de facto equality for African-Americans, Hispanics, and members of other disadvantaged groups. Notwithstanding the efforts of distinguished jurists such as Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., the economic disparities between blacks and whites actually increased in the aftermath of the Brown decision-especially for bluecollar workers. 2 In the years since Brown, wealthy and middle-class white residents, as well as many businesses, left urban areas to relocate to surrounding suburbs. 3 This exodus led to a vicious cycle of decline for older and poorer urban neighborhoods, producing an increase in unemployment 4 and crime, 5 as well as lower property values. 6 This erosion of the urban tax base, in turn, resulted in the curtailment of municipal services and decreased funds for education in these t Economist, The Smart Growth Network and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. M.A. in Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, public sector economics concentration; B.A., economics, University of Illinois at Chicago. This paper reflects the author's personal views and does not represent the position of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1. Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954) ("[Iun the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place."). 2. See JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN, FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM 479 (5th ed. 1980) (stating that, during this period, unemployment rates for African-Americans were more than double that of whites). 3. WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, THE TRULY DISADVANTAGED: THE INNER CITY UNDERCLASS AND PUBLIC POLICY 121 (1987) (claiming that manufacturing industries are relocating from older central cities to suburbs and to other parts the country). Between 1990 and 2000, over one million white, non-Hispanic residents moved out of the nation's five largest cities, and the non-white percentage of the population in these cities decreased from 52% to 44%. CTR.