A History of Housing Segregation

Despite Baltimore's efforts to demolish segregated public housing complexes, and federal funding for housing vouchers and tax credits in the hope of dispersing the area's poor, a U.S. District Court decision recently charged HUD with violation of fair housing laws in the region, calling it a "'reservation' for the area's public housing...Edgar O. Olsen, an economics professor at the University of Virginia, said strong opposition in suburban areas around the country has been a basic roadblock to public housing migration...In the 1940s and 1950s... following accepted practices of segregation, housing policies further entrenched clusters of poor blacks, historians argue." Other experts argue that poor people will continue to choose to live together despite policy efforts to the contrary.