Learn today, plan for tomorrow.
Sign up for news and offers from Planetizen Courses, the online learning platform for planners.
Fresno's Troubled Housing History
The crisis facing many Fresno renters is nothing new. A history of housing in the city shows how, since the late 19th century, poor housing conditions have been "ingrained in Fresno's culture."
"Fresno’s substandard housing crisis has been in the making since the city’s birth,” the piece in the Fresno Bee begins. “It’s a story of poverty, racism, urban sprawl and neglect."
Like that of so many other American cities, it’s a story propelled in part by racist housing covenants and redlining, and legal responses to these practices that tended to change how, not whether, discrimination was enacted. The city and federal government also attempted to replace substandard housing through public housing in the 1950s and urban renewal projects in the 1960s, some of which sited highways through low-income communities.
By 1992, since discovering that "tearing out blighted areas did not eliminate social problems," the city was found to have ignored more than 1,300 homes with poor health and safety conditions, many in low-income neighborhoods of color.
The history lesson is part of a special report on housing called "Living in Misery."
Published on Sunday, May 8, 2016 in
Topics
- City of Compton Introduces Two-Year Guaranteed Income Pilot
- Citywide Zoning Reforms Approved for Sacramento
- More Cities Legalizing 'Granny Flats'
- Draft Los Angeles River Master Plan Revealed
- How Working From Home Is Changing Where We Live
- Will Developers Slow the Path to Net Zero?
- New Book, 'Land,' Searches for Solid Ground
- Fort Worth City Council Wants to Pause Apartment Developments
- Massive, Expensive Redevelopment of Midtown Manhattan Proposed
- How Atlanta Plans to Overhaul Zoning for Housing Affordability
- Lawsuit Targets Granny Flat Law Compliance in California
- Adopting an Intersectional Approach to Parks Planning
- Bike and Pedestrian Improvements Proposed for Seattle Light Rail Stations
- An American Lockdown
- Where the Pandemic Has Scrambled Traffic Patterns
- Dallas' First-Ever Strategic Mobility Plan Ties Land Use to New Transportation Ideas
- Virginia's Proposed Bicycle Safety Act Puts the Onus on Drivers
- The Pros and Cons of HOAs in Cities
- San Francisco's Housing Crisis is Deepening, Despite Falling Rents
- North Dakota's Mask Mandate Expires as Infections Plummet
