Professor Schuck has given us a nuanced, thoughtful and provocative view of the controversy over efforts to “open up the suburbs” to people of color and the poor and working classes. His in-depth look at the three landmark cases in the controversy-New Jersey’s Mt. Laurel, Chicago’s Gautreaux, and Yonkers infamous school and housing segregation fight (especially his analysis of the Yonkers litigation)-are extremely helpful and ground his recommendations and analyses concretely and practically.
Professor Schuck begins by reviewing generally our scheme of land use regulation, pointing out both how concerned housing consumers are about making a wise purchase, and how concerned they remain about protecting the value of their investment. He notes the incredible stew of policies from every level of government that affect the residential housing market, often at crosspurposes. He then quickly reviews evidence about the extent of racial and class segregation in our housing patterns, noting that there is some evidence that racial segregation is lessening, and that suburbs are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse.
In exploring the causes of the racial segregation that still plagues our neighborhoods, he points to the continuing legacy of a history of explicit racism, but he focuses also on three other factors. First, he argues that people choose to cluster with people like them for a variety of reasons- “straightforward economic and social reasons, as well as for more elusive psychological ones”-so that, even in the absence of discrimination, much residential segregation would occur.
