Real Estate Prices and Martin Luther King, Jr.
What Martin Luther King, Jr. was unable to completely accomplish during the Civil Rights Marches of the sixties is happening now, in cities where segregation was most problematic. The strange thing is that inner-city blacks are now coalescing on the other side of the issue. Their complaint? Whites buying them out of black ghettoes at big prices.
Unintended consequences have turned the housing boom (or bubble) into a de-segregator. I wonder what King would have thought of that?
When I was a kid in 40’s and 50’s Evanston, Illinois, the city boasted the outstanding amenity of being home to Northwestern University, which kept it from being a mere bedroom suburb of Chicago. It also had a ‘black belt,’ which had nothing to do with karate and much to do with who was allowed to live where. The balconies of its many movie theatres were reserved for blacks and, although restaurants were not officially segregated, a well dressed black family could wait a very long time to be served.
Evanston Townsh…