Comment by foxyv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by foxyv | Hacker News Reader

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In the United States, 75-90% of all land is zoned for single family residences with maximum densities of 4-5 households per acre. This is a legacy from the era of integration of non-white Americans called "White Flight." White Americans, seeking to avoid living next to non-whites left urban centers and populated suburban centers which had been engineered to be unaffordable or inaccessible to black and non-white Americans.

Houses were large and separated by lawns. They also required financing to purchase. Financing which was usually denied to non-whites by red-lining. In addition these neighborhoods were usually walled off and mazed to prevent people from walking through them. This made families depend on expensive cars to get where they were going, further increasing the burden on those living within and excluding poor and lower middle class Americans.

Now we have these pointless laws that are slowly strangling us to death with expensive car infrastructure that is insanely expensive and deteriorating fast. Small businesses can't survive because of poor walkability, parking minimums and outside investors jacking up rent costs. People can't find homes because they are all too expensive.

The legacy of racism is a death pact for America. I hope we can escape it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#:~:text=White%20f....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

To blame this all on racism is to miss the true motivation which is safety of person and property. It is something I never truly understood until last year's protests/riots, which I think are also at least a factor in people moving out of urban areas again (though few will admit it). When there's unrest which results in arson, looting, and vandalism, those with means will seek safer locales and erect physical and institutional barriers to keep out potential threats. Venice is a historical example of this, built on the water for protection from barbarians.

There are knock on effects such as dimmer prospects for those left than in the more integrated communities that proceeded as investment flees. People rightfully don't want to invest in areas deemed unsafe, where those investments would be at risk.

To be clear, where such barriers manifest in ways where people are judged or treated differently based on immutable characteristics or group identity instead of their individual character, this is wrong.

This is a pretty good take on the ramifications of race riots: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/racism-riots-economics-...

> To blame this all on racism is to miss the true motivation which is safety of person and property.

I think this sentence is much closer to the mark if you say: "the true motivation which is perceived safety of person and property."

I think you are right that people seek out less density and more personal space when they feel insecure or under threat. But in the modern journalistic landscape that sensation can be quite decoupled from the reality of their actual risk of harm.

You portray this as a one-way relationship, but it's a cycle. Yes, perceptions of safety are part of the reason why people flee to the suburbs, but that flight is itself part of the reason so many inner cities are destitute and unsafe. Why put all of the blame on the people most negatively affected by this dynamic and least able to change it?

> People rightfully don't want to invest in areas deemed unsafe, where those investments would be at risk.

That's exactly the rationale behind redlining, food deserts, infrastructure funding (especially schools) and other kinds of systemic racism. I suggest you read up on what that term means. It does not mean that everyone participating in the system is racist. It means that our institutions and economy themselves perpetuate racial injustice even without further racist intent. Framing this entirely in terms of "rational" choices by those who flee, as if those who stay don't exist or don't matter, is perpetuating a false narrative. So, again, why?

I agree that there's absolutely a cycle and don't intend to diminish that or imply that those left behind don't matter or are to blame for their situation. There's clearly reasons why people decide to riot or protest, even if it doesn't necessarily bring about the desired outcomes.

White flight and red lining tend to get thrown around without any attempt to tackle reasons why these things happened beyond some surface level talk of not liking people that are different.

The proper name for "perpetuate injustice without racist intent" is "classism". It can happen in homogeneous countries just as well.. in fact, I grew up in Russia surrounded 99% by other white slavs, and I'm super culture-classist based on that experience. I've also heard from other Eastern European immigrants how it's awesome that in America (compared to at home) it's easy to live not being surrounded by gopniks (chavs in Britain), bydlo (lit. cattle - kinda like urban white trash), and alcoholics, and how they wish Moscow/Warsaw/whatever had more class segregation accessible to an average person, instead of just the very rich. It's a bummer that in America class is so tied to race.

safety of person and property.. from what? because if the answer boils down to racial/socioeconomic unrest, blaming racism seems justified, no?

Sure, racism could be an/the underlying cause. But this perspective is very different from the normal perspective (which foxyv seemed to be promoting).

The usual perspective is that white people fleeing during white flight are racist themselves.

What you are saying is that racism causes violence, and rich white people who are victims of violence flee that violence. So they're not racist themselves but rather second-order victims of racism.

To add to this, in 1950s the low density was seen as a protective measure against bombing, including nuclear. Dense cities like Dresden or Nagasaki were famously destroyed by firestorms from powerful bombing. Population of areas with semi-rural density had much better chances to survive a nuclear blast, hiding in a basement shelter.

It is possible to decentralize without making a population car dependent. Just add walking paths, alleys, and local shopping.

I think a major part of why people built mazes and fences around their neighborhoods is a bit of mild xenophobia. The idea of never having to meet anyone other than your immediate neighbors and chosen associates makes a great deal of sense. If your neighborhood is walkable then you could have unsavory elements on the sidewalks. Outsiders in your neighborhood!

If you can only travel by car, you can isolate yourself and your family and choose who you associate with. You are protected from the general public by your car until you arrive at a "Safe" place like a soccer meetup, church, or a Boy Scout meeting. This is much harder to do in a walk-up apartment where you may meet someone who threatens you physically, racially, or ideologically.

75-90% of what land? the federal government owns 28% of the entire land area in the US, and that land is not "zoned" for any type of private residence.

Incorporated city land. EG: Where most people live. An example would be Fontana here:

https://www.fontana.org/DocumentCenter/View/28163/General-Pl...

A little less egricious is Costa Mesa which serves as a commercial center.

https://www.avenzamaps.com/maps/489436/city-of-costa-mesa-zo...

> White Americans, seeking to avoid living next to non-whites

Were they fleeing minorities or were they fleeing violence and landlords?

… trading the latter for home owners' associations.

The answer to that varies from person to person, and it has varied in aggregate over time, but the effect on those who remain has been the same. It doesn't matter whether those who left were/are fleeing actual danger, race-based perception of danger, or pure economic rationality. If you tip a marble on to a sloped ramp, it will continue rolling down even without further impulse. The fact that at one time race and racism were significant drivers of this effect is sufficient to justify their consideration in any present discussion of causes and/or remedies.

I think a lot of white Americans feared retribution and competition from minorities. Before integration, they had treated minorities very poorly to say the LEAST. I think it's pretty normal to be afraid when someone you beat with a horse whip last tuesday suddenly gets to own guns and businesses in your neighborhood.

In addition, propaganda from racist organizations was running wild. Stuff like "White Genocide" and "Race Riots" were predicted by racist organizations who still profit from this fear today.

But naturally the answer is that they were fleeing minorities, violence, AND landlords. In most people's minds all three were mixed up. In the end, the makeup of the neighborhoods they fled to were built around isolation enabled by cars.

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