Thursday, October 13, 2005

Black Removal (Home and Land Ownership)

Yesterday the media was reporting the return of residents to New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward to see what was left of their homes. This factoid was buried in the report: although 33 percent of the residents are below the poverty line, over 60 percent own their own homes. If memory serves, that is well above the national average for blacks, which is somewhere between 40 and 50 percent.
Let me jump into speculation. The high ownership rate is a function of the stability of the black population--people born in New Orleans stay in New Orleans. Over the generations, the working, saving blacks have built up their home ownership. Homes were cheap enough and wages high enough to make it possible for people to beome new owners. Conditions were stable enough so that existing owners didn't lost their homes.

That process may have been similar to the process in certain other cities, notably Washington, DC in mid-century. It is also similar to the progress in black land ownership in the 60 years after the Civil War. Blacks worked their way from ex-slave, to share cropper to tenant to landowner by hard work, thrift, and endurance. Land was cheap enough to make it possible.

What has happened: changes make it harder for existing owners to remain and for new people to buy.

1 In DC in the 1950's, urban renewal came along and removed many landowners. Rising housing prices, particularly recently, make it difficult for poor homeowners to stay. Unless you're in the meritocracy, there's little way to earn enough for families to buy new homes.

2 In rural America, the boom and bust of agriculture and the advent of mechanization, which lessened the advantage of large families, has meant black landowners leave for cities and the north.

3 In New Orleans, the odds are against the black homeowners being able to resume their life.

No comments: