Racial Segregation in Planning

One of the things I have learned in my Social Issues in Urban and Regional Development course at the University of New Mexico is the history of planning. What caught my attention specifically was the World’s Columbian Exposition and how it failed at representation. The World’s Columbian Exposition was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World. It was designed by architects and designers as a prototype for a perfect city. It showed what architects, landscape architects, and planners could do once they work together, and 46 different countries participated in this fair. As a result of the buildings’ color, it was dubbed the “White City.” I was surprised to learn that so many countries participated in the fair, considering that it essentially a Exposition for white people. It represents the white supremacy of the time; I found that the majority of the visitors said it was what a perfect America should look like: white. It’s no surprise that African Americans didn’t really have a say in the creation of the fair and any exhibits they wanted to display had to be approved by an all-white committee.

The design and planning of a city has an effect on how people view certain things. People visiting the World Fair saw all white and that reinforced their ideals that all-white is the best way to go, if the different groups and countries shown were represented better, that could have made people believe that less discrimination and more collaboration are better than reinforcing your own ideals— everyone has to be taken into consideration to make the situation better for everyone. A world fair should represent the world, which Chicago’s World Fair did not do. I believe this can be used as a what-not-to-do guide in terms of representation. It would be better to consult with the groups being represented and let all of them take the reins for their own exhibit or buildings. This would require even more people to work together, so it would represent what global collaboration may look like. Designs such as this one are pretty extraordinary and world fairs have gotten better but there is potential for more, including what is outside the box for average architects and planners.

The idea of representation touches on racial discrimination. Another thing we learned about during this course is equity issues in zoning. Zoning is the process of dividing land in an urban division that has corporate status and local government into zones in which certain land uses are permitted or prohibited. Equity issues in zoning refers to the notion that zoning affects different demographics in different, often discriminatory way, when speaking about minority communities. Zoning laws could discourage certain people with a certain income to either live there or not. For example, if zoning laws are used to restrict small single-family houses or trailer parks, it would be highly difficult for a family of lower income to live there, making this zone a “rich” zone. Since most minority communities consist of people of color and immigrants, this turns into a racial issue, even if it wasn’t intended to be so. Unlike how the “exclusion on race or ethnicity was the hidden agenda behind some of the nations earliest zoning laws.” This is exemplified by San Antonio’s anti-Asian zoning law that restricted laundries in some areas, since most laundries were run by Asians who lived close to their business many had to find a different area to start or continue their business.

Similar to the World Columbian Exposition, zoning laws discriminate. It’s arguable that both, the creators of the Exposition and the ones writing these zoning laws, were not thinking “were doing this to discriminate against non-whites,” but whether this was an externality or on purpose, they still had (and still have) a discriminatory effect.

In today’s zoning laws, the discrimination is a lot less blatant, which makes it difficult to root out and address. For example, the Massachusetts passage of 40B requires that every region of the state make affordable housing as a proportion of its total housing stock. This law has led to the construction of affordable housing, but the impact has been small, continuing the segregation of lower income families and certain racial/ethnic communities.

By addressing and amending our zoning laws we could potentially reduce the racial segregation that is present in today’s society. We could avoid building such a blatant example of white supremacy as seen with Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition.

Sources

Rydell, Robert. “World's Columbian Exposition.” Back of the Yards, www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1386.html.

Bluestone, Barry, Mary Huff. Stevenson, and Russel Williams. The Urban Experience: Economics, Society, and Public Policy. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.