January-March 2017 Volume 26: Number 1 Zoned Out in the City: New York City’s Tale of Race and Displacement Tom Angotti The arrival of vast amounts of efits of high density—including energy before and in some ways intensify as speculative capital in big cities around efficiency, mass transit and walk- the high-density core becomes whiter the nation and world during this cen- ability, all counterweights to wasteful and wealthier. Unfortunately, policy- tury has fed a tremendous urban build- suburban sprawl. And inclusion. The makers in the city tout the inevitabil- ing boom. Although many promised city appears to be a model of ity of these market trends even as they this would help solve the shortage of inclusionary land use policies in con- provide substantial public subsidies to affordable housing and bring new op- trast to the well-known exclusionary support them. portunities for the millions of people zoning in the suburbs. Zoned Out! reflects and is a prod- burdened by high rents and who are Behind this mirage, however, low- uct of the many struggles by residents living in overcrowded and inadequate income people and minorities are be- and small businesses, principally in conditions, it has instead resulted in ing forced out of the city—already communities of color, that have been their displacement to new urban pe- highly segregated—by the new upscale fighting against those who claim that ripheries. The new housing is almost development and moving to the development and displacement are in- entirely built for the luxury market, sprawled, resegregated suburbs. Eco- evitable, that they have nothing to do and has had the secondary effect of nomic and racial inequalities persist as (Please turn to page 12) raising rents and land values in the existing housing stock, further displac- ing many long-time residents. Vacancy rates in the new housing are high, sig- CONTENTS: naling a surplus of housing units in this sector of the market and calling into Argument: Zoned Out in the City .................................. 1 question traditional supply-side argu- Tom Angotti. Rezoning, displacement, and the need for ments. community planning in New York City. These trends are obvious in New Response: The Clear and Present Danger of Supply York City, which claims it is “the real Skepticism .................................................................... 2 estate capital of the world.” The city’s Vicki Been. Rezoning in the service of a diverse boosters point to its iconic Manhattan and growing city. core as a model for the presumed ben- This Green and Pleasant Land ...................................... 3 Bryan Greene. A neighborhood-eye view of racial covenants and social networks in a history of Queens, Tom Angotti (tangotti@hunter. New York. cuny.edu), is Professor of Urban Policy Dirt and Deeds in Mississippi ....................................... 5 & Planning at Hunter College, City William Minter and Michael Honey. Documentary film University of New York and editor with review: songs and stories of rural civil rights organizing. Sylvia Morse of Zoned Out! Race, Dis- Justice in Our Community ............................................ 7 placement and City Planning in New Jane Kelleher, Miriam Elisa Hasbún, and Randy Reyes. York City (UR Books, 2016). This Law students build a model for clinical service. article is based on Zoned Out! Direct Resources .................................................................... 18 quotes are in italics. Poverty & Race Research Action Council • 1200 18th Street NW • Suite 200 • Washington, DC 20036 202/906-8023 • FAX: 202/842-2885 • E-mail: [email protected] • www.prrac.org Recycled Paper The Clear and Present Danger of Supply Skepticism Vicki Been There is no doubt that public century. Changing those regulations have wanted to move here, or grow policy needs to grapple with the chal- can therefore increase the value of a their families here, that the City stops lenges that our low-income households plot of land, but lower the cost per growing. So, at bottom, Professor face in gentrifying neighborhoods, and unit of the housing built on that land. Angotti is advocating a no-growth the ways in which racial discrimina- But the point of changing the regula- policy. tion and inequality affect the causes tions, at least in New York in recent That is in line with the mood of and consequences of those challenges. years, is not to increase the value of some parts of the country, but has Unfortunately, Angotti’s analysis of the land—it is to allow more housing never been consistent with New York the problems gets many facts wrong, to be built to meet the demands of a City’s values. We have always been a and his prescription for solving the population that is growing faster than gateway city, with bolder plans than problems is seriously misguided. I’ll it has in decades, and to assure that a our counterparts to provide quality focus specifically here on perhaps the significant portion of that new hous- housing and economic opportunity for most dangerous claims of his polemic, ing will be permanently affordable. If current residents and newcomers. In- the housing world’s equivalent of cli- the supply of housing is not increased deed, many of the programs to accom- mate change denial: the assertion that modate growth spurts in the past, such building more housing is not neces- Most New Yorkers as the Mitchell-Lama housing built to sary to ensure the affordability of provide middle-income housing to ac- housing. He argues that land develop- treasure, and champion, commodate a growing population af- ment is not subject to the standard laws the diversity that makes ter the war, are now both a cherished of supply and demand, and that zon- the City unique. part of the City’s low- and moderate- ing change to allow more housing in- income housing and a proud part of creases the value of land and “produces our history of openness. Most New gentrification and displacement.” to accommodate growth, rents will go Yorkers treasure, and champion, the Land use regulation likely limits up. There are no other plausible out- diversity that makes the City unique; property values below what an unregu- comes (at best, increased rent burden we believe that the essence of the City lated market would produce, espe- could be delayed somewhat, perhaps, is the magic that results from the fu- cially when—as is the case in some if families crowd together, don’t form sion of so many different races, parts of New York City—that zoning new households, or otherwise spread ethnicities, religions, cultures, genera- has gone largely unchanged for half a the cost over more people.) Unless we tions, backgrounds, and talents. So a build new housing, people who can no-growth “solution” to our afford- afford higher rents will outbid poorer ability crisis is startling, even in the Vicki Been ([email protected]) is current residents for existing housing. upside-down world the country is cur- the Boxer Family Professor of Law, Stopping that result would require ex- rently in. New York University School of Law. plicit (and probably unconstitutional) But that’s what would follow from Professor Been served as Commis- growth controls, strict and strictly en- Professor Angotti’s logic. Even build- sioner of New York City’s Housing forced rent-regulation, and a bevy of ing only affordable housing wouldn’t Preservation and Development from other tactics to make the City so unat- solve the problem—unless we keep 2014 through January, 2017. tractive to those who might otherwise others out, building more affordable housing will not address the demand for housing by those who want to move to New York. And of course, there’s Poverty & Race (ISSN 1075-3591) is published four times a year by the Poverty and the matter of who will pay for that Race Research Action Council, 1200 18th Street NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036, affordable housing (and the social ser- 202/906-8052, fax: 202/842-2885, E-mail: info@ prrac.org. Megan Haberle, editor; vices, good schools, open space and Tyler Barbarin, editorial assistant. Subscriptions are $25/year, $45/two years. Foreign postage extra. Articles, article suggestions, letters and general comments are welcome, public realm and infrastructure im- as are notices of publications, conferences, job openings, etc. for our Resources Section- provements required to support that —email to [email protected]. Articles generally may be reprinted, providing PRRAC housing). New York City has commit- gives advance permission. ted 10 percent of its entire ten-year © Copyright 2017 by the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. All rights capital budget for subsidized afford- reserved. (Please turn to page 15) 2 • Poverty & Race • Vol. 26, No. 1 • January-March 2017 This Green and Pleasant Land Bryan Greene I was born in St Albans, Queens, It happened, in part, by chance; in The golf and country club helped es- in 1968, a few months after the pas- part, by will and activism; and, in tablish the exclusivity of Addisleigh sage of the federal Fair Housing Act. part, by dint of a close social network Park. Other developers, like the Rod- The Fair Housing Act would have among the Black elite, but especially man & English Company, built on opened up this neighborhood to my among celebrated jazz musicians who Brown’s plans and marketed the homes parents had they encountered resistance migrated there from Harlem. These in newspapers and brochures with re- when they moved there the year be- migrations, starting in the 1930s, strictions. A 1926 New York Times ar- fore. Indeed, when my parents had in- transformed the borough. ticle states, “Addisleigh, together with quired about houses for sale in other As you might expect, St. Albans the St. Albans Gold Club was laid out Queens neighborhoods, real estate was not founded as a Black commu- under the personal direction of Edwin agents asked, “Greene? Is that a nice nity.