Public housing, segregation and history of public housing, housing

Housing, Law, History, Discrimination, and Banks
In the mid-20th century, America was recovering from the Great Depression and WW2. Less than 100 years before, there had been Reconstruction, or the rebuilding of the former slave South.  A quote by Rothstein is: “The purposeful use of public housing by federal and local governments to herd African Americans into urban ghettos had as big an influence as any in the creation of our de jure system of segregation.” (Rothstein, 2017, p. 18.) This shows that public housing at one point created harsh and massive segregation; however, at one point, public housing was for working and middle-class white families, because there was no other housing for them to live in. At first, housing was slightly subsidized. Nowadays, public housing consists mostly of African American and Latino communities. During and after WW1, 170,000 white workers lived in public housing that was barred to African Americans. This housing was right outside of military bases. (Rothstein 2017, pg 18.)
LA, in 2022, which has one of the most expensive/unaffordable housing markets in the world, just passed a good law that allows more housing to be built. (Picciotto, 2025) This mentioned the fact that over 45,000 units of housing under 80% of the median income for LA were proposed between 2022 and 2023, after the law was passed, which shows how good it is. (Picciotto, 2025)
These tie in with each other because there was not enough housing after World War II. Nowadays, public housing is meant mostly for Latinos and African Americans; at one point, it wasn’t even allowed for African Americans to live in public housing. Public Housing, nowadays, is built for Americans to be able to afford housing based on 80% of the city’s median income. This is important because it makes it easier for a decently large group of the population to afford housing. My point is that more housing should be built, including subsidized housing. I also think that we should try to build better and more public housing that is clear, safer, and nicer. This will help Latino and African American communities who have less income, and may self-segregate.

                            














Citation:
Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright Publishing.
Picciotto, R. (2025, November 17). How building affordable housing became the hottest game in L.A. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/los-angeles-california-affordable-housing-7203324b