Raisin, Race, and the Real Estate Revolution of the Early Twentieth Century

Carol M. Rose
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Abstract

Lorraine Hansberry’s hit play of 1957, A Raisin in the Sun, centered on the decision of an African American family in Chicago, the Youngers, to move to a house in a white neighborhood. The play is set in the post–World War II era, but many of its scenes and actions relate back to real estate practices that began at the turn of the century and that continued to evolve into the midcentury and to some degree beyond. During those decades, housing development and finance increased dramatically in scale, professionalization, and standardization. But in their concern for their predominantly white consumers’ preferences for segregation, real estate developers, brokers, financial institutions, and finally governmental agencies adopted standard practices that excluded African Americans from many housing opportunities and that then reinforced white preferences for housing segregation. Many seemingly minor features of the play reflect the way that African Americans had been sidelined in the earlier decades’ evolving real estate practices—not just the family’s overcrowded apartment, but also more subtle cues, such as the source of the initial funds for the new house, the methods for its finance, and the legal background of the white homeowners’ effort to discourage the purchase. This essay pinpoints these and other small clues, and describes how standardizing real estate practices dating from the turn of the century effectively crowded out African American consumers like the Youngers, with consequences that we continue to observe in modern patterns of urban segregation.
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葡萄干、种族和二十世纪初的房地产革命
洛林·汉斯伯里1957年的热播剧《太阳下的葡萄干》讲述了芝加哥一个非裔美国家庭扬格一家决定搬到白人社区的一所房子里的故事。该剧以二战后的时代为背景,但它的许多场景和动作都与房地产实践有关,这种实践始于世纪之交,并继续发展到世纪中叶,甚至在某种程度上超越了这个时代。在那几十年里,住房开发和金融在规模、专业化和标准化方面急剧增长。但出于对以白人为主的消费者偏好隔离的考虑,房地产开发商、经纪人、金融机构以及政府机构最终采取了将非洲裔美国人排除在许多住房机会之外的标准做法,从而加强了白人对住房隔离的偏好。剧中许多看似微不足道的特点反映了非裔美国人在前几十年不断发展的房地产实践中被边缘化的方式——不仅仅是这个家庭过于拥挤的公寓,还有更微妙的线索,比如新房的初始资金来源、融资方法,以及白人房主努力阻止购买的法律背景。这篇文章指出了这些和其他的小线索,并描述了自世纪之交以来,标准化的房地产实践如何有效地排挤了像年轻人这样的非裔美国消费者,其后果我们在现代城市隔离模式中继续观察到。
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