Dispatches from Left Field: Disinvestment and Depopulation

New weekly TNG contributor, Matt, who studies transportation planning at UMD’s Urban Planning program, elaborates on some points he made last Wednesday in his post about gayborhoods. Matt also blogs at tracktwentynine.blogspot.com.

Last week, I wrote my first column on TNG. In fact, it was the first time that I have written specifically on gay issues to a gay audience. I had thought that I was writing on a subject which most would find interesting, but not one that was particularly provocative.

I was, it seems, incorrect. My column inspired a thoughtful response on Friday by Ed Jackson. The points are well made and address a much greater scope of the gayborhood than I intended in my previous column.

Indeed, last week I was trying to investigate the genesis of gayborhoods and their role in the gay community from a gay perspective. Mr. Jackson correctly pointed out that the history of the gayborhood did not start in 1969—it started some time before—as a non-gay neighborhood. He is also right to point out that I did not talk about the prior residents affected by the influx of gays, but I did not intend to. It is certainly worthy of discussion, and I’m sure it will be discussed in the future on TNG, perhaps in this column. But I try to keep my columns to no longer than a type-written page, and were we to trace the policy decisions leading to the gayborhood and disinvestment in the city, we would have to trace it back at the least to Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers, who all espoused a dislike of cities—something that seems to have been passed down from generation to generation in the United States.

A one page column cannot do what a 50 page policy brief can—and we’ll have to make do with a more general overview. Last week, I spoke of “disinvestment” in urban areas. I did not specify why disinvestment had occurred; I only made reference to the “pioneer spirit of disco-era gays.” The first gays to move into the gayborhood were pioneers of sorts. Often exiled from their families and unwelcome in their hometowns, they set out to find hope. In the process they formed communities and began to create a culture. They moved into neighborhoods that most affluent people wouldn’t have given a second glance, and which real-estate brokers would certainly not have been found.

But these neighborhoods weren’t blank slates. I referred to them as “depopulated”—not empty. If a neighborhood loses a significant portion (not necessarily most or all) of its population, it could be called depopulated. And urban neighborhoods in the late 1960s and early 1970s were certainly hurting for population. Many affluent residents had left, and several other push-pull factors were continuing to disrupt communities. While I didn’t describe the causes of disinvestment, it seems my comment was interpreted to mean that people merely chose not to invest.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There were many contributing factors that led to certain neighborhoods being “ripe” for gentrification by gays. The factors go back generations and stem from, among other things, racism—both active and institutional in nature, unintended consequences, and the actions of communities themselves. (This list is not intended to be completely exhaustive).

Redlining dates back to 1934 with the formation of the Federal Housing Administration. With redlining, neighborhoods would be scored based on the “security” of a home loan in the area. The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) judged any neighborhood with a minority population (even if less than half of the population was minority) was unsuitable for a loan. In conjunction with restrictive covenants, this denied access to mortgages to minorities, including blacks and Jews. It also contributed to the decay of certain areas because no one could buy a house or get a loan to fix one up in most urban neighborhoods.

By the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement was gaining strength and won a significant victory in 1954. That year, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka that segregated schools were unconstitutional. While I certainly think that this ruling was long overdue, it also contributed to urban decay. Segregated schools were, of course, still possible. If one lived in a county with few minorities, schools would be “integrated” legally, but not practically. And unfortunately, most cities were surrounded by counties of this precise makeup. These suburban counties were partially very white because of redlining and restrictive covenants.

And if the “push” factor of desegregation was not enough, it was soon coupled with an enabler. In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act. Now, certainly some freeways predate the Interstate System, some cities and states were already building them, but the 1956 Interstate Act made it possible for all cities to build a vast network of them. Suddenly, the suburbs became closer and more accessible (for whites)—and many moved to them allowing other neighborhoods to start a decline. And if that wasn’t enough, freeways were pushed through neighborhoods destroying housing, infrastructure, and separating people from jobs and services. Most freeway construction occurred in minority neighborhoods, furthering the hurt of previous policies.

By the 1960s, “Urban Renewal” was in full stride. This practice, at least on the surface, was trying to save cities. The motives behind it were varied, and some proponents were genuinely trying to improve their cities. Others, however, were using it as an excuse to displace minorities. Southwest Washington, DC was almost completely cleared for “renewal.” Instead of quaint rowhouses and locally owned shops, the area became a wasteland of garden apartments cut off from the world by tall fences. Cities began to build housing projects (the badly designed ones tend to date from the 1960s forward) which concentrated poverty in certain areas, and did nothing to solve the systemic problems creating poverty.

With the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, many cities erupted in violence. Large swaths of DC burned from riots starting at the intersection of 14th and U Streets NW. While our gayborhood, Dupont, was mostly spared, rioters made it to within two blocks of the White House before being turned back by the National Guard. Even in neighborhoods far from the ’68 melee, riot bars went up on shop windows, and even more people headed for the ‘burbs.

The next year, the gay community threw its own riot. After a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, the gay community in New York and eventually the rest of the country began to stand up to anti-homosexual laws and practices. This is also considered to be a seminal moment in the creation of the gayborhood. As gays began to publicly come out of the closet, they created communities where they could be out and proud. As I wrote last week, the legacy of the gayborhood has been to foster understanding both within the gay community and with the straight community. As more and more gays come out, homosexuality becomes less and less marginalized, and gay neighborhoods have helped that process. But the interaction has not always been easy between neighbors.

This disconnect is unfortunate, and it is the responsibility of all involved to work toward a solution. That is beyond the purview of this column, but not beyond my experience. Perhaps we can explore this topic more in future columns. Ed, I hope you continue to contribute; your thoughts are valuable.

Now, I’ve gone on for far too long. This column is more than double the length I would normally write, but I’ve already learned a valuable lesson as a columnist: Never sacrifice clarity for the sake of brevity.