I don't fully understand commenter sfparkripoff's chronology (is it supposed to be sequential? because "separate but equal" was the phrase used to justify Jim Crow/segregation, and housing policies have been racist for a long time -- during Jim Crow, the 20c. civil rights era, and the recent housing boom/bust). But the point you can draw from it is that racist government policies (federal, state, and local) over many, many years have led to economic isolation and deprivation. I don't mean to give short shrift to the destructiveness of the "war on drugs," but I think that housing policies -- which really kicked in during the Great Migration from the south to cities the north and west -- have been particularly damaging. Homeownership, of course, is THE main asset/source of wealth for most families in the US, so housing discrimination is very significant. Even if we were willing to acknowledge all this in our public discussions (and we aren't), it would be a big challenge to turn it around. I would also say that many of my neighbors who have owned homes here for decades have been waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for their home values to rise, and for "gentrification" to occur, so that this neighborhood can have some amenities. And/or so that they can sell their homes and move outside the city. Is it possible to have economic diversity AND amenities? I don't know -- but I certainly haven't seen it happen (I grew up in a mid-size midwestern city, in a neighborhood that was experiencing "white flight" during the 1960s and 70s -- we felt helpless then, but nowadays inequality is much worse).
To sum up: it's a complicated world -- impossible to fathom all the greed and good intentions and fear and frustration.
