Creating Momentum for Transformative Change: Addressing the Racialized Structure of Opportunity

john a. powellDirector, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and EthnicityWilliams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Moritz College of Law

TIDES Momentum ConferenceSeptember 7-9, 2009San Francisco

My Biography

o I grew up.

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My Parents

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My parents were sharecroppers in the South.

They left the South in search of opportunity.

Home

They moved north seeking opportunity and bought a house.

Today I would say they bought into a declining area or low opportunity structure.

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My Old Neighborhood

The vacant grassy plots are not parks.

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Where are all the people?

Central City

Suburbs

Suburbs

Suburbs

Suburbs

This fragmentation depresses the whole region.

What’s left behind?

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Vacant lots and abandoned houses

Where I Grew Up

I grew up in a low opportunity structure in a declining opportunity city.

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It is also known as Detroit.

Deconstructed Opportunity Structures

and Neighborhoods

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Place and Life Outcomes

• We all live in opportunity structures.

• The opportunities available to all people are not the same.

• Opportunity is racialized.

Housing

Childcare Employment

Education

Health

Transportation

Effective Participation

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Some people ride the “Up” escalator to reach

opportunity.

Others have to run up the “Down” escalator to get there.

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Opportunity is Racialized

o Structures and policies are not neutral. They unevenly distribute benefits and burdens.

o Institutions can operate jointly to produce racialized outcomes.

o This institutional uneven distribution & racial marking has negative consequences for all of us.

Lower EducationalOutcomes

Increased Flight

of Affluent Families

Racial and Economic

Neighborhood Segregation

SchoolSegregation &Concentrated

Poverty

Isn’t this just an issue of poverty?

o No – even if it was, that would not be an adequate answer.

o For those living in high poverty neighborhoods, structural factors can significantly inhibit life outcomes.

Low income urban blacks are many times more likely to live in structures where there is little opportunity.

It is not much better for rural blacks or Latinos.

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Which community would you choose? 14

A Tale of High and Low Opportunity Structures

Low Opportunity High Opportunity

• Less the 25% of students in Detroit finish high school

• More the 60% of the men will spend time in jail

• There may soon be no bus service in some areas

• It is difficult to attract jobs or private capital

• Not safe; very few parks

• Difficult to get fresh food

• The year my step daughter finished high school, 100% of the students graduated and 100% went to college

• Most will not even drive by a jail

• Free bus service

• Relatively easy to attract capital

• Very safe; great parks

• Easy to get fresh food

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I now live in a high opportunity structure.

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Opportunity Matters: Neighborhoods & Access to Opportunity

o High poverty areas with poor employment, underperforming schools, distressed housing and public health/safety risks depress life outcomes

A system of disadvantage

o People of color are far more likely to live in opportunity deprived neighborhoods and communities

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A trip in the past or back to the future? The real story of redlining starting with Philadelphia

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Changes since then….o Systems have become more complex. Example: mortgage

finance went from a 2 to 3 party system

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Homebuyer

Party 1

Seller (and/or)

Lending Institution

Party 2

Homebuyer

Party 1 Lending

Institution

Party 2 Government

Sponsored Institution

purchases, insures or underwrites loan

Party 3

Pre-Depression: Two Party Housing Market

The Post-Depression FHA Era: Three Party Mortgage

Market

Created by Chris Peterson, University of Utah Law School

…to this!

Today: The web of actors and institutions

involved in the sub prime lending and

mortgage securitization

market

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From Redlining to Reverse Redlining:A historical view of redlining zones in

Philadelphia and areas of foreclosure in minority

communities.

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Columbus, OH: Non-White Population & Foreclosures

More than Just Foreclosures and a

Few Bad Borrowers:

Understanding the Credit Crisis Impact in Communities of

Color

Why Were Subprime Loans Concentrated in

These Neighborhoods?

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Why is the growing foreclosure problem causing problem in

communities of color?

-Lenders targeted communities of color with subprime loans

-Lack of loan information or understanding for consumers in many of these communities

-Communities were historically starved of credit

-Mortgage securitization and the growth of the subprime industry created incentives to target new markets with mortgages

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Who’s to blame?

************************************************************

The old inequality made the new inequality possible.

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Photo source: (Madoff) AP

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Two ViewsAtomistic

• The problem: bad apples

Colorblindness as the goal.

Systemic• The problem: poisonous tree

Fix the “soil”.

The structures we live in are actually systems.

Systems Thinking:

A D

C

B

E

Causation is reciprocal, mutual, and cumulative.

The Newtonian Perspective:

A B C D E

Linear causation

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Consider the Broader Context

o We want to avoid negative feedback loops.

o A structural analysis is deeply relational and time bound.

Example: the subprime crisis. “People got bad loans.”

A surface view solution: “Stop giving people bad loans.”

Contextualized view (SR analysis) solution: Fix the dual credit market, stop spatial segregation/redlining, work toward stable home-equity building, etc.

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What are the implications of opportunity isolation?

• Poor economic outcomes, lower educational outcomes, degraded asset development

• Poor health conditions, higher exposure to and risk from crime

• Psychological distress, weak social and professional networks

Individual

• High social costs, distressed and stressed communities, fiscal challenges

• Weakened civic engagement and democratic participation

• Underdeveloped human capital, poor labor outlook, poor economic development prospects

Community& Economy

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What are the costs of opportunity isolation?

o Individual/family costs Living in “concentrated disadvantage” reduces student IQ

by 4 points, roughly the equivalent to missing one year of school (Sampson 2007)

o Societal cost Neighborhoods of concentrated poverty suppress property

values by nearly 400 billion nationwide (Galster et al. 2007)

Remedying Opportunity Isolationo Adopt strategies that open up access to levers of

opportunity for marginalized individuals, families, and communities

Invest in people, places, and linkages

Bring opportunities to opportunity-deprived areas

Connect people to existing opportunities throughout the metropolitan region

Targeted Universalism

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Rethinking Structural Arrangements

o Bringing people into structures that formerly excluded them may not be enough

o Message is: individual is not properly “negotiating” the ladder when the ladder is too narrow or long … and we’re climbing alone

Insensitive, perhaps hostile structural arrangements

o We need to re-think structures themselves

Questions or Comments? For More Information, Visit Us Online: www.KirwanInstitute.org

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