Housing inequality can be seen everywhere you go in America. A person’s class, race, sex, and intersectionality can affect housing inequality. I believe that everyone no matter what race, class, or sex has the capability to be as successful as they possibly can. Just because you are discriminated against or victimized does not mean that you can not achieve the same goals as everyone else, whether that be you buying a house or even just creating wealth. I believe that everyone can overcome this problem of housing inequality by stopping the racist victimization of minority groups and begin to see everyone as equal no matter their history. I believe that everyone is equal, so it is hard to see the issues with housing inequality in America, and the extreme housing segregation in the inner cities between people of different races, sexes, and classes. With this being said I hate to even clump these different groups into minority categories based on their race, sex, or class because I strongly believe that everyone is created equal. Though I understand that people of different minority groups do sometimes have different challenges to overcome they all have an opportunity to succeed and create housing equality for all.
In our society a person class always determines where they live, what kind of environment and what kind of neighborhood they live in, and most importantly what kind of house they buy, rent or even if they have a house. A person that is from a wealthy class almost always stays in that class, which means that wealthy people are well off. The wealthy people settle for nothing but the best, they must have every modern amenity and luxury. They buy houses in affluent neighborhoods around all their wealthy friends and family of the same class. These individuals often have estates that are way to big for what they need.
The United States has some of the most upscale neighborhoods. For example, the city of los Angeles has some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States. Bel-Air and Beverly hills are just two examples. In these two neighborhoods the people are the same class they are all extremely rich and all have huge palaces that one could only dream of having. The wealthy class only gets weather which means that they buy bigger and more expensive estates, thus creating a bigger gap of inequality in the housing market. An example of one of the wealthiest estates is a property currently for sale in the affluent Bel-Air neighborhood. The estate named, Casa Encantada is listed for a whopping $225,000,000. That’s right two hundred and twenty-five million dollars. This is the most expensive house in all los Angeles.
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On a house that has a monthly payment of $1,135,817.00 you better believe there is housing inequality. Every inch of the 40,000 square foot house has been restored to perfection by talented architects. The neighbor’s house is now listed for $195,000,000 after the 11-bedroom 18-bathroom home took a 50,000,000-dollar price cut. But if you would like a cheaper more affordable home you can move to Beverly hills where you can find a real bargain mansion at 165,000,000 dollars. This house only has 20 bedrooms and 21 bathrooms, “obviously not enough space”. These homes are just an example of how unequal the housing market is between the rich and poor classes. These people are living in a multimillion-dollar estate while there are 533,000 homeless people in the united states. The poor classes are struggling to find affordable housing and are just hoping for the housing inequality to change. These examples show that the reason the housing market is so unequal because of class. The bigger the wealth gap is the more housing inequality you see between different classes. The wealthy keep buying more expensive houses which creates a substantial, growing gap between the poor and riches housing options. This makes it harder for people to move up in housing class.
In the United States African Americans are facing extreme discrimination in the housing market when they are trying to buy or rent a house. Examples of this could be lack of affordable options in their neighborhood because of zoning or past housing segregation laws, it could also be the problem with integration. This can make it especially hard for a person of color to move into a different neighborhood. Therefore, we still see so much racial inequality between neighborhoods in our inner city’s today. The racial inequality in the housing market has been detrimental to our communities for decades and needs to change. One big reason that our communities are segregated is because of organizations. The organizations mainly pertaining to state and local governments. These state and local governments zone communities a certain way so that they can face racial discrimination.
Our government gives huge tax incentives to real-estate developers who build housing for low income racial groups. One example is these developers are only developing these property’s in poor minority communities. This prevents integration of different races into predominantly white neighborhoods. it is often good to create more affordable housing options in minority neighborhood’s which can revitalize the area, but it does not help with the problem of integrating racially divided communities. For example, the zoning in parts of Houston have not changed since racial segregation laws in the early 1900s. while there are not current laws that prevent African Americans from moving into predominately white neighborhood’s, the zoning and real-estate values of certain neighborhood’s often prevent this from taking place.
Two examples of racial housing inequality in the Houston area are the sunset heights and the independence heights. The Houston neighborhood of Sunset Heights was developed in 1910 and was an extension of the greater Houston heights. The sunset heights was a thriving white suburb in the early 1900s. The independence heights is a Houston neighborhood that was designated the first all African American community in the state of Texas in 1915. The independence heights backed right up to the sunset heights.the two communities were then separated by a two-lane gravel road and large field where the white and black children used to pay baseball and football together. Now the two are separated by the eight lane 610 highway.
Before 1917 the people of the independence heights could not move to the sunset or greater heights because of the city of Houston’s zoning laws, which prevented African Americans from moving into the predominantly white blocks of the greater heights. Even with these neighborhood’s convenient access to downtown and development potential they are like two different worlds. It is crazy that in 2019 we still see such a difference between these communities. These communities really haven’t fully integrated. The independence heights is still predominately African American and the sunset heights is predominately white. The sunset heights is now thriving with the development of large grocery stores, redevelopment of historical landmarks, and development of large luxury townhomes and apartments. While the independence heights though not struggling, it is seeing little development in the housing market because of past zoning and segregation laws. The people of the independence heights are having a hard time finding affordable housing. When they look to rent or buy their options are limited. There are not even developers that are developing affordable housing options.
Intersectionality has a major impact on African American communities. there are laws that keep poor families from picking their child’s school and allow rich families to send their children to nice private schools. These laws directly effect the black community because the schools in inner city neighborhoods are NOT good. Whereas the schools in rich black or white neighborhoods are exceptional. The schooling has a direct impact on a community and there housing quality. A community with good schooling has a good community. Whereas a community with bad schools have a bad unsafe community. These differences in schooling directly effects our housing in these areas, and because people cannot choose the school of there choice it effects the community in a negative way and keeps them at the very rock bottom seeing no future.
