Parker, Elsie Smith (fl. 1943) Both Sides of the Color Line

[Draft Created by Crowdsourcing]
Both Sides of The Color Line
By Elsie Smith Parker

The sound evaluation of real property lying in the "twilight zone" which segregates racial groups offers the appraiser one of his hardest problems. Social factors tend to outweigh those which are purely economic. The author herein lays a sound philosophical background for practical interpretation in a subsequent article.

PERHAPS Sir John Hawkins had never heard of the story of Pandora, but he was as much an instrument of fate as she, when in 1619 his boat docked at Jamestown, Virginia. The account which was written by Captain John Smith and his Generale Historie says "a Dutch man of warre, arrived in Jamestown port, that sold us twenty Negers. " Thus began, not only for the Negro but for the white man, the countless ills of servitude, which at times have dinned so loudly upon the ears of men that the voice of Hope has been lost in the clamor.
The three great basic needs of man are food, clothing, and shelter. Man provides food and clothing for himself, if given a reasonable opportunity under our system of free enterprise, but shelter involves many outside factors over which he may have little control because special problems are involved in the housing of each population group.
Income has a large bearing on the type of housing, but equally important is an understanding of traditions, needs, standards, and the psychology of the group to be considered.
Until the close of the War between the States, the Negro housing problem was the individual problem of the white owner. If the owner had great wealth and lived in a comfortable home, it usually followed that his slaves were comfortably housed. Not as we understand comfort in 1943, but the slave cabins were dry and warm and offered a certain amount of security. The Negroes were fed and clothed, if only because it was sound economic policy to do so.
The southern women, much maligned by current fiction as women who had the "vapors" and fainted all over the lot at the slightest provocation, were in the main much like the women of today. These ladies of the Big House ran their homes, prepared the vast amounts of food over drafty fireplaces, spun and wove the flax and wool, made the clothing and carpets, nursed the sick, bore their children, and finally closed their eyes at what we would today call early middle age, all with the help of gentle, loving, black hands. These southern women taught their help to care for and appreciate clean, comfortable homes. The Negro men and women who were house servants lived in the Big House and were as well housed as the members of the family.
In 1865, when the War between the States came to an end, the great plantations were broken up. Out of the Old South the covered wagons rolled westward, into Texas, across the desert to California, or creaking over the mountains along the Oregon Trail.

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The Negro was a lost child. He was the refugee of this desolation. His entire pattern of life was changed and he began his great exodus. The Negro streamed northward, individually, in families, and in groups. He started north to "El Dorado," but alas, for him the North was not an El Dorado. It was aloof, without understanding, and it was cold. He found that in men's minds it was one thing to fight a war for a great cause, but it was something else to have the cause move in and live next door.
Negroes are gregarious, rarely are they solitary. As a rule a solitary Negro is a sick Negro. They live in groups, they seek group approval and they must have group understanding. They feel the need of leadership, and while this leadership may come from an understanding white person, it is far better for the Negro if this comes from his own kind. One of the greatest evils which has been perpetrated upon him is leadership which has a selfish motive, or which is a form of exploitation.
The Negro did not ask for fraternity when he came North. He had that among his own kind. He had a legal right to expect equality, but the door was barred as tightly on one as on the other. Only among the Quakers, those quiet people of God, did the Negro receive sympathetic consideration.
The first big problem of the Negro in the North was housing. He came empty handed and poverty stricken. He was accustomed to having food, shelter, and clothing provided for him. True it was by the work of his hands that these things were his, but the direction came from his leader-his white man.
This child of the sun was lonely for his own kind, and he tended to settle in groups, just as was done by groups of European emigrants, and for economic reasons the Negro settled in a section of the city where rents were lowest.
Plato said "Men do not love a city because she is great, a city is great because men love her." There was little inducement for the Negro to love any city. He was first of all an agriculturist. He loved the warm brown earth, he knew the growing things of nature. Racial patterns change slowly and the Negro is lost unless his feet touch the Earth.
Unfortunately there was no one to plan for or help the Negro find his place when he came straggling northward. Now as we look back upon the whole situation we see what might have been done. A generation, even two, might have been saved but there was no one to assume leadership. In old Russia, in India, and China we find what might have been the ideal economic plan for the Negro. It exists today in this country, among the Amish Mennonite people. In brief, the land may be either individually or collectively owned. The owners live in a small settlement which is centrally located. Thus the people live in a community and at the same time carry on a rural life for they farm and graze their herds on the outlying fields. Their "kitchen gardens" are near the house, while corn, potatoes, and vine vegetables are grown in some corner of their outlying fields. This plan would have been within the Negroes' experience and he would have been a useful, productive citizen. He would have attained his full stature rapidly because of his independence. The blight of segregation might have been avoided.
The Negro would have been living in another condition which is vital to his well-being and that is to be among his own people, sharing their warmth and laughter. He would have had an audience of his own kind for his joys and sorrows. His innate dignity of race, which is as much a part

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Both Sides of The Color Line 29
of him as is the white man's pride in ancestry, would have been preserved inviolate.
Maltus' theory of population has been questioned and denied, and granted that circumstances and statistics may set it aside, it will do until a better one comes along, and we must have some point of departure. Maltus held that mankind tends to reproduce at a geometrical ratio and that the population doubles every twenty-five years.
In the case of the Negro this may be an overstatement, for disease breeds in the tenements and infant mortality among Negroes is still high, although much has been done to improve conditions.
The Negro population of the United States proper, as it is today as compared with figures of former years, taken from the last United States Census report, is as follows:
NEGRO POPULATION AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION

Date Negro Population Per Cent of Total Population
1790 757,000 19.3
1840 2,874,000 16.9
1860 4,442,000 14.0
1890 7,489,000 11.9
1920 10,463,000 9.9
1940 12,800,000 9.7

A study of these figures will show that in the last fifty years the Negro population has increased by 5,000,000 even though the percentage of the total population has decreased 2.2 per cent. New York City alone has more than one-half million Negroes and Chicago has almost 300,000. However, the great bulk of the Negroes still lives in the Old or Deep South. Even if the Maltus Theory is wrong, the problem of Negro housing shows no signs of decreasing.
In the South, the Negroes are caught in an economic system which is inefficient, to use a diplomatic term, and this can not be improved until the entire picture is changed for both white and Negro. In the North the economic condition is better, but living conditions, by and large are not.
There is a law out of the East which operates at all times, in all conditions. Briefly stated it is "As below, so above; as above, so below." We in the western world recognize the same truth in the quotation, "A fountain can rise no higher than its source." We are prone to deplore the fact that the Negro is unstable, that he is a problem child in social and economic matters, but we are apt to forget that he can not rise above his living conditions. The tenement leaves its mark upon his soul. The living conditions in our great cities leaves the mark of disease upon his body. Tuberculosis, venereal disease, and death in child bearing are the dark horsemen of the race. They wait at every tenement door and the death rate because of these plagues is much too high in the light of our national advancement in the fields of medicine.
We know the cure of these physical blights. It is Education. Not a static education which we have so often offered the Negro and called it opportunity, but a dynamic education based upon his needs. It helps a Negro not one whit to know that Columbus discovered America in 1492, but this fact may have meaning if first things are taught first. A knowledge of some of the simple facts of personal hygiene might be instrumental in saving hundreds of lives.
Mortality, disease, and crime statistics can be reduced greatly by slum clearance and rehousing projects, for the whole problem revolves around the housing situation and the living conditions. We can build all the elaborate housing projects we

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have room for. They can be furnished with simple, neat, well-chosen furniture. There can be a bathroom for every family and plenty of sunlight and air, and in one year's time, the entire project will resemble, on the inside at least, the tenement from which the Negro families were moved in the first rosy flush of the "new plan."
Starry eyed "do-gooders" are apt to grow a bit weary at this juncture and pass on to greener fields or become "intensely eager" over some other social problem, but the Realtor and the Appraiser who see these situations every day, know that the fight has just begun. They realize that the weapon the Negro must have is Education, and they also appreciate the fact that standing beside the Negro, armed with the same weapons and helping in the same battle must stand the white man. Both must be able to hear the whisper of hope, too.
Whenever the subject of racial group housing comes up for discussion, we hear the term "blight" applied. Perhaps it would be well to define the term and then draw our comparisons and conclusions.
What is blight?
Blight is any use of land that does not produce an economic return, and which results in financial distress.
The causes of blight in residential areas may be listed under three classifications. They are known as initial causes, contributing causes, and resulting causes. Initial causes of blight are so important in their effect that the presence of any one of them is enough to cause blight. Contributing causes can readily be removed or remedied but in conjunction with initial causes they hasten and increase blight. Resulting causes are the conditions which accompany blight and intensify it. They do not of themselves cause blight, for they are not real causes, but the results of initial and contributing causes.
Initial causes include wrong type of development, too large an area zoned for business, too large an area zoned for dwelling and apartment houses, an oversupply of building lots on the market, and over crowding of land. Where the construction has been completed an initial cause for blight is old buildings which can not be modernized, because they either fill the area and there is no space for alterations or their size and plan make them unadaptable for modern requirements.
Another cause of initial blight is a variety of uses which can not be reconciled, as racial groups for which the former dwellers have decided antipathy. Dwellings used as boarding houses, hotels, tavers, or the conversion of the larger single-family dwelling into rooming houses causes blight. Heavy traffic is a blight on residential property, as is also the location of some types of production such as soap factories, tanneries, smelters, and rendering plants. Almost without exception Negro groups are forced to live in blighted areas.
Blight growing out of contributing causes is very common, some of these causes are obsolete buildings, buildings which are out of date and not modernized, but capable of being renovated and reconditioned, poor building sites, poor drainage, unattractive surroundings, high rates of taxation, lower wages paid in the given area, rising standards of living, ability to pay more rent and thus demand better housing, fashion and mode of living, opening of more desirable building sections, and a created attitude of mind.
Resulting causes are due largely to the fact that blight is usually accompanied by absentee ownership and management. Where this is the case, we find general neglect of property, little or no upkeep and general dilapidation. Since blight operates in a vicious circle, where we find little or

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Both Sides of The Color Line 31
no upkeep by the property manager, we find the type of tenant who pays little attention to his living conditions or his surroundings.
Why is an area blighted because a Negro family moves in? What does the presence of several Negro families in a block do to the rental return on a given property? What happens to the block or more of housing which lies between the "all-white" and the "all black" groups?
Why must there always be this sharply drawn line between the groups? And in searching for the answer we come at once upon the subject of miscegenation. It is the "end-all" argument behind which non-thinking people retire. From a psychological, social, and biological standpoint marriage between the races does stand as a barrier to complete fraternity and it is a locked door against equality. It is a mountain in the pathway of the forward moving forces, but it is a mountain which neither white nor black would wish to see moved. Like unto like is a law which carries terrible penalties if broken. Granted the fact that miscegenation is demoralizing, destructive, and intolerable, it still remains that improvement of conditions is not built upon personal and private relations, per se. To all who would argue the point, pro or con, one needs only point out that the Negro, quite as much as his white brother, asks only to be left alone in his personal life. He asks only the same rights as a white man, namely, to marry one of his own kind and to establish a home. We grant him the first request, but we have been of little help in the second, and yet as an ethical and social responsibility, it is proper that the members of a race that has been handicapped throughout its history in America by exclusion from many types of social and cultural advantages, should in an enlightened city be given a chance to develop all their native qualities, their potential abilities, and their own ultimate destiny as a race.
Housing conditions were bad enough in the large industrial centers following the War between the States, but they reached an all time low, at the close of the first World War. The Negro had swarmed into the north when his labor was in demand in the defense works of that time. He moved in with his own kind, and the so-called "Black Belt" spread. Many fine old residential properties became beehives with ten or twelve Negro families living in a house that had been built to shelter one family. The area became one of blight.
Naturally the area where the Negro was housed spread as more and more Negroes came north to work. The older apartment houses and the large residential show places were taken over. To quote from The Economist, August 8, 1908, "The first colored man to move into a community is compelled to pay higher rent, but as soon as he is discovered, rents in the entire section go down, and it is with difficulty that anyone is secured to occupy adjoining flats or houses." This also produces the condition which is known among Realtors as blight. To illustrate by a simple example, which might be applied to city blocks or entire areas we have given three dwellings in a row, houses A, B, and C. House A is occupied by a white family and house C is occupied by a Negro family. House B is blighted, for neither white nor Negro wish to break over the line. Finally a Negro family, because of the need for living quarters, moves into house B, and then the white family in house A moves out and house A becomes blighted area. This condition is responsible for fluctuations in rental returns upon given properties. Previously house B had been occupied by a white family and a cash rental

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of $40 per month was received. When the Negro family moved into house C, house B stood empty for six months with a total cash loss of $240 in rent . Two colored families moved into house B at the end of the six-month period of vacancy, each family paid $30 per month rent. This made up the deficit in a short time and is one of the reasons why entire areas are being added to the Black Belt.
It is this haphazard plan or lack of planning that results in poor housing conditions for all concerned and it sets up economic conditions which carry with them all the attendant problems which pyramid rapidly. Any living condition which forces rents up or down sharply and rapidly is one that will bear investigation. There is a yard stick by which rentals can be determined and which is fair and equitable. Twenty-five per cent of one's income should be spent for housing, but many Negro families are forced to spend from 30 to 40 per cent of their income for inadequate and unsightly places to live. It is wrong from every point of view to expect racial and national groups to live in castoff houses. We do not expect them to wear castoff clothing, nor eat castoff food, and yet in the situation which makes for the greatest measure of security, namely housing, we do little or nothing, except "view with alarm."
In Chicago we have five distinct areas which are predominantly racial or nationality groups. These include the Negro, Polish, Italian, Jewish, and Czechoslovakian groups. Many of these groups are in the lower brackets as far as economic standards are concerned, their standards of living are necessarily lower since they pay less rent there is greater physical deterioration of the real property.
In a philosophical mood, one may wonder if any of these people happened to read the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty as they came into our great harbor of promise. You will remember it is not a promise we have kept to the best of our ability.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming
shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-
tossed to me;
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Not by commission perhaps, but certainly by omission we are forcing these people to live in slums. Slums grind out their revenge, slowly, but as surely as the mills of the gods. Somehow or other the retribution will appear in the final balance sheet of any community. The slums may be compared to a cancer, which is a healthy growing organism, which is not growing right, nor in the right place. A cancer is not unhealthy in and of itself, but it is a parasite and it kills the body on which it feeds. The slums of a city are its parasites but they are lusty. They produce brilliant flowers of crime, and the place but abundant fruit of disease and death. Slums by their vigorous growth make the rest of the city sick. They feed on come and delinquency. They thrive in disease. They grow and spread and in so doing they sap the life blood of the city. They cost more in cold hard cash than all the parks the city fathers can muster and they cost more in human suffering, misery, and death than all the wars.
In 1932 there were twelve million Negroes in the United States. It seems impossible to meet even minimum standards of privacy and sanitation for all these people at one time, but much of the problem grows out of our antiquated housing pro-

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Both Sides of The Color Line 33
gram and our tolerance of slums. Racial factors, of course, are in part responsible but there has never been enough acceptable quality housing for the low income groups.

Insufficient housing causes high rents, because demand determines market price. The average rental per room for low income groups in New York is under seven dollars, while the same accommodations for Negroes will cost almost ten dollars per room; the same is true in Chicago. The formula is simple-zone an area and over-crowd it and the rents begin to climb. This overcrowding of low income groups degenerates rapidly into slums.
Knowing this we might assume that slum prevention would be easy, but experience proves otherwise. Chicago as well as many other cities needs a Master plan which looks into the future one hundred years!
By Master or long view city planning and by education of a practical sort, slums can be eliminated and new ones can be prevented. Some of the steps to be considered and kept in mind are the distribution of population to prevent crowding and congestion and the careful planning of the subdivision to prevent spreading, waste spaces, and the uneconomic use of land. This long view planning must set aside areas for our Negro citizens where they can own their homes and live happily.
Last but not least, in addition to the plans for social changes we must follow the Master plan for city building if we would prevent slums by the preservation of beauty, insuring residential areas, providing for business center and civic needs, and filling in the spokes of the great wheel-the Master plan-with schools, churches, parks, and playgrounds.
We can rebuild just as some of the bombed cities of Europe are destined to rise, like the phoenix, out of their dead, cold ashes, and with proper planning they will be new cities on a new earth, for all the former things (old buildings, narrow streets, darkness) will have passed away.
Education among the Negroes should be directed toward creating a desire for pleasant and attractive living conditions. The lesson and white landlords must learn is that there are as many different kinds of white people. It is true that some Negroes make much more desirable tenants than do many white people.
An attractive block of Negro homes, well kept and in good repair will work miracles, for seeing is believing. Slowly the dilapidated and overcrowded slums will disappear and new housing will take their place, housing that has been planned for the families who will live there.
The area given over to Negro housing should be bounded by parks, lakes, rivers, and golf courses which are available to the Negro for his recreation. If we expect him to be a self-respecting citizen we must treat him as such.
The price of good housing is eternal vigilance on the part of both the white people and the Negroes. The upkeep is important and the constant improvement is vital. The dividends on a well-kept housing project can not be estimated.
After this bitter war is over, Negro as well as white capital will be available for housing projects and slum clearance. This can not be done all at once-only a mushroom grows to maturity overnight, and it is gone by midday. Stability is like the oak which grows slowly but surely and provides shelter for many.
Negroes must be given an opportunity to earn a decent living. They must likewise be given an opportunity to own their own

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homes. Pride in possession is one of the fundamentals of the human heart. Rightly used this is a trait which can be an important factor in the elimination of slums.
About 14 percent of the Negro families in Chicago own their homes. This figure should be multiplied many times by 1960. The financing plan for Negro home ownership should be liberalized. The Negro population of all our cities should be given an opportunity to live in decent homes at a figure which is commensurate with their income.
We need better housing laws, and our present housing ordinances must be enforced. All new buildings must be in carefully zoned areas which will insure satisfaction for all groups concerned.
Slum prevention and adequate Negro housing are big problems. They are like a heavy cross that must be carried up a long, steep hill. Once before, long, long ago a heavy cross was carried up a hill and the Man faltered and would have fallen. Out of the curious crowd that thronged the streets of that city sprang Simon, a Negro from Cyrenia. He put his shoulder under the cross and helped carry it up the rocky way. Perhaps that is symbolic of our present national problem.
There is back-breaking, heart-breaking work to be done and more than one pair of shoulders will be needed. It will be a slow process, but it can be done. Education of the right sort, a cultivated growing desire for self-betterment among the Negro, and understanding and helpful attitude among the white people-these are the first long steps, and out of it will grow a sense of law and beauty, and a face turned from the clod, and it is being done in some of our cities-some steps have been taken and in the second section of this article specific details of the work being done in New York City, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and Denver will be described and what one city has done another city many be expected to improve.

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Both Sides of the Color Line
Part II
By Elsie Smith Parker

In this, the second of two articles on the subject, the author develops the economic phases of the basic problem and presents a wealth of material for consideration. We gather that no general panacea has yet been found which would stabilize the properties on either side of the "line," but the article extends a measure of hope for the ultimate future.

IT was just dawn and the air was chill. A gray mist covered the face of the sea. In the bow of the little ship which had been battling the stormy Atlantic for six weeks stood a rough Spanish sailor. Looking toward the west, he thought he saw a pin point of light. It flickered and then became a steady gleam. In the light of the rising sun which dispelled the mist, a cry arose from the wearing group of men-"Land Land!"
Never a more prophetic cry than this one on the morning of October 12, 1492. A great undeveloped country lay before these men. It stretched away to the west into distances almost as great as those they had traveled. This shadowy, sleeping empire was to stir, to turn, and awaken to the sound of trampling feet, rolling wheels, and humming motors. Men and machines would all play their part in the great endemic quest; that burning desire in men's hearts; that driving hunger for land.
Land means a home, a farm, or a place of business. It is the solid ground on which we can stand and of which we can say, "this is mine."
Living Room

In the early history of this country there was room for all. Men of France and England went on record as saying that the land supply, the building space, the living room in this New World could never be exhausted.
Perhaps under a different economy, a planned building program, such might have been the case, but by virtue of population and trade we became a nation of cities. Manufacturing, trade, exports, imports, transportation systems, and all the kindred enterprises contributed to and helped build our great metropolitan centers. With this came congestion which may be attributed to many causes. There were the low income groups who were forced to live where they could meet the rent bill. Laborers found it necessary to live close to their work in the great manufacturing districts. Because of these, and other reasons previously mentioned¹ there has always been inadequate low cost housing and insufficient low rental accomodations for people in these income brackets.
As a result, slums came into being, and while our slum areas do not equal those of London, Paris, Istanbul, Rome, or Berlin it may be because our slums are still in
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¹Elsie Smith Parker, ''Both Sides of The Color Line'', The Appraisal Journal, January, 1943, pp. 27-34.
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232 The Appraisal Journal, July 1943
their youth. We are creating them much too rapidly, and in any event, we do not want to emulate Old World cities in this respect.
Slums exist however, and are a very real part of every major city in this country. What can be done about this situation? Let us drop, except as a concomitant, the sociological aspects, using them only as approach or as an explanatory circumstance and regard this matter from the economic viewpoint. We may be able to set forth some possible solutions, primarily for the blighted areas now occupied largely by the Negro groups, and we may also arrive at some logical conclusions applying to this economic problem, regardless of race, creed, or color of inhabitants.

The Economic Aspect
There are a number of reasons why this particular phase of the problems is being considered. It has a most important bearing on future developments in our housing program. Appraisers are interested in the problem from many angles. In addition, they desire the problem to be considered objectively from one specific point; i.e. does Negro occupancy have a tendency to blight only the given area where it occurs, or does it blight the surrounding white area, which a corresponding decrease in valuation and a loss of tenants.
To ascertain the facts in the case required much research. Very little has appeared in print. Private enterprise is not interested in making public the details of such matters. They often lack the money and the time to bring such matters to the attention of the reading public. Government Housing has issued many bulletins and releases, all valuable and worthwhile, but for the most part, bearing on one side of the case only. Out of this material and through interviews and case studies, however, some few facts have emerged which are pertinent to the subject.

The Color Line
White slum dwellers have one advantage over the Negro slum dweller. The white families who live in the blighted areas are at liberty to move freely into any other section of the city as soon as their income permits them to meet the rentals or ownership cost. Neither does anyone claim that their presence in the neighborhood, by and large, will cause the adjacent property to decrease in value.
This is not so in the case of the Negro. In the main, because of restrictive covenants and financial instability, he is compelled to occupy certain definite areas, and it cannot be denied that his presence in large groups has the effect of blight upon the surrounding property. The first blight which we must mention is the mental blight or the depreciation in psychological worth. Some Negroes may take better care of their property, they may be as law abiding, they may have an equal education, they may in fact be just as fine citizens as their white neighbors, but we all know of countless neighborhoods and communities where the presence of one Negro family will cause many white families to move out. There is an immediate falling off in rentals of surrounding property and a corresponding depreciation in value, more Negro families move in a then the returns are greater and the color light blight moves to the next block.

What Has Been Done?
Up to the present time there have been two general types of housing projects designed to clear slum areas and to maintain values of the surrounding property. The first program is known as the Federal Public Housing Authority which operates

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through independent local municipal corporations which build, own, and operate housing projects, financed in whole or in part by Federal loans and subventions.
Under the provision of the United States Housing Act, the Federal Government may assist local housing authorities to build low rent projects through loans and annual grants-in-aid. Consequently, the low rent housing program is locally owned and operated, subject, however, to Federal review and supervision.
The second type is the privately financed housing projects, which include those built by insurance companies, philanthropists, and other private capital. The States of New York and Illinois are pioneering in neighborhood redevelopment corporation laws and while the law in Illinois is still very young, (it was signed by Governor Dwight H. Green, July 9, 1941) it has been copied and put on the statute books of several other states. The Illinois law as it operates is discussed at length in The Appraisal Journal, for July, 1941.² A bill (h.b. 169) has been introduced in this session of the Illinois legislature which would repeal this law. The bill is based on the fact that at the present time we have not made provision for living quarters for the people occupying these blighted areas. Much study is being given the measure and there are indications that with the end of the war, unless some unforeseen situation develops, there will be an unprecedented amount of low rental housing built. It will be based on this measure which may have to be modified to meet the problems its application involves.
There is every reason to believe that many private corporations will enter this field, too, because under the law, such a corporation is granted the power of condemnation. This power of condemnation provides the teeth which, prior to the passing of the neighborhood redevelopment law, were lacking in all the other rehousing laws. Many times in the past, private enterprise has wanted to rebuild an area, only to run into a stonewall of absentee ownership, or ownership which sets price far above fair value. Now with a 60 percent option or ownership on the section to be improved, the power of condemnation may be invoked and rehabilitation may proceed.

The Housing Plan
Much of the opposition to Negro neighborhoods is based upon depreciation of adjacent property as a result of the encroachment. Let us analyze this argument and attempt to meet on points of agreement.
That we may better understand the picture let us set forth some of the tenets which are a part of the various housing plans. First to be considered is the housing designed for the very low income group. In 1935, according to the figures available, the average annual income of a Negro family was $480. Incomes have since been upped because of war work, but we may safely assume that the over-all average income of a Negro family in the United States does not exceed $750 annually. With our present privately owned rental properties it is impossible to secure adequate or even decent living quarters for one-fourth of that sum, which, according to Roger Babson, is the relative amount of income which should be spent on housing. Because the only possible living quarters for these people are in the slum districts and their financial condition is such that cannot improve their location, rehousing may be financed by the Federal Govern-
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²William Wilson and John C. Butler, Slum Clearance Legislation, The Appraisal Journal, July, 1941, pp. 221-228.

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ment, the state, the city, or by private corporations. What will be the return in cash? Will they affect nearby property?
Of necessity, the returns at first will be "in the red." One by one, as companies pioneer in this work, the knots are taken out of the problem. The management of the great Lucas-Hunt village in St. Louis by the Ralph F. D'Oench Company which is reviewed in the current ''Journal of Property Management³, is a study of how the management of such a large housing project may be done more efficiently. Recently, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company built a great housing project, known as Parkchester in the Bronx of New York. The experience of this company is not a matter of record for public release as yet, but we can draw our own conclusions concerning the success of the project when we learn that the Metropolitan plans additional housing projects in several major cities following the war, and the Equitable Life Insurance Company is now building a smaller project in Brooklyn.
These are of course, have been built as homes for the so-called white collar class with a definite income, but they point the way. It would indefinitely better for both whites and Nefroes if such things could be done for the Negro. He should in some way have a share in it, not on the receiving end alone, but he should have an opportunity to make an investment in such a plan for his race.. Housing projects, built in present slum areas are one solution. They could be built in special additions as well, and the slums cleared. Some of our present blighted area will doubtless be needed for industrial sites following the war.
Any improvement in living conditions is worth trying for. There is no doubt but they increase the value of surrounding property and the potential value is limitless. Not in dollars and cents alone but also in imponderables, in intangibles, in human life, and in children's laughter one hundred years hence.

Education for Living
We can also consider the housing project as a school. Such a city within a city may shelter five hundred families. Because of their improved health, their weighted morale due to better living conditions, and their increased grasp on their own problems due to adult educational programs, these problems due to adult educational programs, these five hundred families come to want homes of their own. Their income increases because of their improved standards of living, and we have five hundred prospective customers for the lower and middle priced homes in the new subdivision which we as Relators, appraisers, and architects are anxious to see built up. This is a fact and has been proven over and over by the upswing in buying individual homes near a housing project.
Here is an long-time blight eradicator with all its economic gains, for these families have been graduated, if you please, from this housing project and many of them will plant gardens, keep their homes in repair, and take their places as capable, responsible citizens for they are now home owners, The economic factors in such a program are apparent and are convincing.
What of the surrounding property? Will such a movement do anything for slum clearance? Will it reduce and prevent blight? It is human nature to take pride in possession. In fairness we must admit it is not always the Negro occupancy alone which causes blight, the contributing factor may be the age and condition of buildings in which these people are houses which causes the trouble. However, the results of Negro occu-
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³Ralph D'Oench, Large Scale Management, The Journal of Property Management, July, 1943, pp. 287-304.

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pancy are not all encouraging. As a case in point, a leading Realtor in Chicago was called to the stand in a court case involving Negro occupancy. The following statement is his sworn deposition, based on twenty-five years of active real estate practice in the city:
"Deponent says that he has had opportunity to and has observed the effect upon the value of high class residence districts of permitting residence in such high class residential districts to be occupied by colored people of African descent;
"Deponent further says that where a high class residential district, exclusively occupied by the people of the Caucasian race, has been developed and created, the effect of any of the residences in such districts being occupied by persons of African descent is to destroy the high class residential character of the neighborhood which induced the residents to move there, and to expend their money in developing, and results in an acute depreciation in the value of residence property located in such neighborhood and district amounting to many thousands of dollars;
"Deponent further says that is a matter of common knowledge and experience that the occupancy of high character, by colored persons of African descent destroys the value of the neighborhood properties, discourages the saleability to persons of the white race and generally results in the removal of the white residents from the district, thereby destroying the investment of owners and residents and injuring the homes of such owners and residents, as well as defeating the acquired benefits and advantages which theretofore accrued."
There are also figures to show that Negroes housed in well built, modern units of housing do not always have a blighting influence on the surrounding neighborhood if it be an industrial or commercial center. In fact stores, shops, service stations, and even slum clearance projects often get under way. The people who are not fortunate enough to be selected to move into the new housing project can bring pressure of a sort on the landlords who 'milk' a tenement and who fatten on the misery of their fellow men.

Other Possibilities
Perhaps the school idea does not appeal to you or to your board of directors. They may shake their heads and say "No, we are looking for interest on our money. We want the project to pay for itself on short terms. We are looking for steady income and sure return now-not in some distant future date." Certainly no one can be blamed for such an attitude. Anyone who carries life insurance knows that investments must be made carefully and securely, with just such restrictions.
There are two possibilities for such investors. First, the housing project could be designed to meet the needs of the group in the higher income brackets. But it would be well to check the fate of ten- and twelve-room apartments to get a clear picture of what can happen. The day of the extra large, deluxe apartment is passing, and the day of the two and one-half to four-room apartment is just beginning to dawn.
As a possible second plan, if the board of directors decide to build for the lower income groups there is much to encourage them. The income of the group so housed is likely to rise, the people so housed are better able to work, there is less illness and there is a certain pride inherent in human beings which gives confidence and reliability. The rents can in turn be increased, commensurate with income increases, the indebtedness can be liquidated

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and the property became a profitable investment.
As was pointed out in the preceding article?, slum clearance is a slow process and requires long range planning. The slums did not grow up in a day or a year and they will not deliquesce in the twinkling of an eye, but they can be reduced. The land around them can be preserved from further depreciation and as the worst areas disappear and beautiful new housing units take their place, values will rise.

Segregation
What about the color line in this matter? Where does it enter in? Are we to restrict, segregate and bar the Negro? This is a matter which each city must decide for itself. No blanket ruling can apply. A ruling which would be acceptable in Minneapolis, Minnesota, might not be workable in Jackson, Mississippi, and yet both might be right for the prevailing conditions and there is room for all. Negro leaders agree that in comparison of conditions today with those sixty years ago, great progress has been made.
This much can be accepted as a blanket ruling, however decent living conditions should be furnished as rapidly as possible. The better the locality in which they are situated, the greater the return of good to the community both in rising values and in improved conditions.
Whenever a slum is razed and a housing unit takes its place, two situations develop at once. The people who are housed in the new buildings remain in their own neighborhood and do not crowd into a section where they might be unwelcome. The property, unless it is subsidized, becomes an income producing property. This reflects certain definite values growing out of money spent on better living, and at the same time has certain moral and detersive effects on the surrounding property because of the pressure exerted by the group who are prevented from moving into the new building because of space availability.
Let us look at the housing picture in five? cities that have been faced with the problem during the years. Let us see what they have been doing and what they plan to do. Figures are not available in all areas but we can draw some conclusions not in regard to the need but what effects these housing projects have had on adjacent real estate.

New York City
The problem of bringing about adequate housing facilities for Negro families in New York City is a very perplexing one and is made particularly difficult by many interrelated circumstances. Housing conditions among the Negros of the city have been substandard for years, in fact they have never been adequate nor have the buildings been properly acted for by owners or tenants. New York City, composed as it is of five boroughs, has five separate and distinct problems. General housing conditions among Negros are found to be the best in The Bronx and the worst in Richmond. No report based on averages for the five boroughs should be considered, for such an average would not present a true picture of any of them. However, some statistics are acceptable for the total picture, as for example: only one-fourth of the buildings occupied by Negroes are under thirty years of age, and one-fifth are in good condition. Less than three percent have elevators, while over one-third of
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?Op. Cit., The Appraisal Journal, January, 1943, pp. 27-24.
?Information made available through courtesy of real estate men, city housing authorities and planning boards, Economics Divisions of Universities, and newspapers on file in The Appraisal Journal office.

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the dwellings are from three to nine stories in height. Based on the standard set by the United States Department of Commerce the figures show that 23 per cent of the quarters occupied by Negroes in New York are overcrowded.
Because Harlem and the Negro quarter are synonymous, a brief report of that area will give a picture of present conditions. New York City's No. 1 Community Problem is the 530 blocks which comprise Harlem. It contains 280,000 Negroes and about 100,000 mixed foreign groups. It shows the greatest over-crowding, it has the highest rent levels and in spite of having the most dilapidated dwellings, it has at the same time the most acute housing shortage in the city. Vacancies stand at 1 per cent, against a normal rate of 5 per cent. The rents for these places is approximately seven dollars per month higher than comparable quarters in other parts of the city, and it is estimated that 50 per cent of income is paid out for rent.
Out of this pit-from which there has been a continuous seepage-checked only by the East River, the rising tide creeps southwest and northeast. It has become a social danger as well as an economic tragedy. Here in this area, hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in real estate. One-third of the real estate parcels have been tax delinquent for at least three years, due almost entirely to our inadequate tax laws and the vicious 'milking' system. More than 600 tenement houses have been condemned by the city but people live in them. Thirty-four acres of vacant land lies in the region, marking sites where buildings have been demolished or not rebuilt following fires.
These teeming blocks, representing as they do millions of dollars' worth of invested capital must be cleaned up. They will continue to decay and depreciate unless they are checked. They are like bad apples in a barrel, they destroy all the good about them. It is apparent that as the colored group moves into an area, the property values surrounding it drop.
East Harlem is the worst slum area in northern Manhattan. The area suffers too, from a great amount of unproductive property. There are demolition cases, boarded-up and vacant buildings, and rapidly decaying tenements. Over one-third of the store buildings are vacant. Nothing can increase the value, nor add to the return of this property unless an adequate housing program is put into force. The land is under all-it has value, but it is not being utilized and will not be put to its highest and best use, unless decent living quarters are given the people who now exist there. The present assessed valuation ranges from $5 to $10.25 per square foot. The area has a total assessed valuation of $147 million, but taxes are not paid, and the valuable property, which could be used to such splendid advantage, is a disgrace to the city.
New York City has a well organized Committee on City Planning and they have mapped out for East Harlem the following steps which will begin to function as soon as the war conditions make vital material available. The steps include (1) immediate clearance and rebuilding; (2) minimum compliance with the law as it now outlines adequate housing; (3) extensive modernization of present existing structures.
In other words, East Harlem could only increase the value of its real estate through rezoning, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. As the community has deteriorated, the surrounding properties have declined in value, but fortunately, when is the community is rebuilt, and higher investments are made, the surrounding parcels will also increase in value and higher rents will be

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charged. The same housing situation holds true for West Harlem and is just as vital. It is an interesting bit of information to know that a block in West Harlem, just north of 142nd Street, between Seventh and Lenox Avenue has a population of 3,871 persons. It is said to be the most congested dwelling area in the world. West Harlem is seeping toward the Riverside area and lower Washington Heights. The city is prepared to have the racial line advanced to Broadway on the west and 175th Street on the north.

Philadelphia
Somewhere it had been said that the spirit of a people is reflected in their dwellings, so if we are to choose adjectives which describe the dwellers in our great cities, we perhaps would use the terms "restless New Yorker" and "contented Philadelphian" and get a fairly clear picture of the civic spirit of the people as well as of their dwellings. Philadelphia is older than New York, more erudite than Boston and more deeply historical than Washington. It is, therefore, not surprising to learn that some of the most outstanding changes have been recorded in Philadelphia. They constitute a pioneer effort in effecting decent living conditions for the under privileged.
Philadelphia has a population of almost two million people and 13 percent of that number, or approximately 251,000, are Negroes. While the city has not built many new homes in some sections during the past quarter of a century, the Negro population has been increasing in numbers each year. Old neighborhoods deteriorated with a corresponding slump in values and as the white families moved out the Negro group took over. West Philadelphia and Germantown went to work at once to build several apartment houses and groups of row houses for colored people. In Philadelphia, however, the median rental for Negroes is $21.94 as against $28.49 for whites. In the substandard areas the correspondence is $18.89 and $19.14. There are 1859 units of public housing occupied by Negroes exclusively. So far Philadelphia has worked out no complete plan for Negro housing after the war. It will be one of the major problems for the city, since defense work has caused such an influx of workers that even the statistics released by the Government from time to time, change overnight.
Here as in other cities, the Negroes have moved into the older residential sections which are run down. As the city has grown, newer and more desirable areas attract families from the older sections. These older sections become less desirable from point of site value and physical conditions in general. The entire neighborhood deteriorates. Then, as the cost of upkeep increases, in fact has become prohibitive due to war conditions, the owners cease to make repairs and the property runs down and becomes blighted area. Such things always occur when housing is used which is ill adapted to the demands made upon it in occupancy. The Octavia Hill Association has done a fine piece of work in improving living conditions among the Negroes in a limited way. After the war, whole sections of Philadelphia will be razed to make way for new housing units if present hopes are realized. When this happens, the property surrounding the section will increase in value and will cease to be a problem child of the social and civic organizations of the city.

Detroit
Detroit has its problems with the color line. A great sprawling industrial city, barely able to house its regular peacetime workers, the war has so changed the pattern

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that very few facts can be given which will be facts six weeks later. There has been at the present writing a 14 per cent increase in population. Prior to 1940 the ratio of Negro to white in Detroit was 9.2 per cent. According to the Detroit Chamber of Commerce, 20 per cent of that group owned their own homes.
There are two Federal Housing Units in Detroit, having a total of 141 units which are occupied by Negroes. There are in addition some temporary defense housing projects. The slum area in Detroit extends from the Detroit River to Highland Park and is several blocks wide. In this area only one large housing program has been launched. This project embraces 941 family units. The parcels of real estate in the immediate vicinity have increased in value, due to the influx of small shopkeepers, service stations, beauty shops, and all similar places of business. The Negroes occupy a marginal economic status which places them at a disadvantageous position in buying shelter. It is in Detroit, as in most large cities, a matter of practice to limit the areas in which they may live. Restrictive covenants prevent their rental of homes and purchase of land or houses, particularly in newly subdivided areas.
The Detroit Housing Commission is aware of these desperate conditions through the applications they receive for project homes. At the close of last year they had received 12,431 applications for admission. The need for a housing program here is critical.
One of the chief objections to federal housing is the fact that the taxes paid on such a project are relatively nil. There is a strong and growing feeling that public housing should pay full taxes and only those families who are financially unable to pay the rent be subsidized. The city naturally feels a strong objection to a non-tax paying project from a financial standpoint, but the case lies not alone in the taxes which are lost to the city by such a project. The trouble is deeper, and more serious. The tax laws are inadequate and difficult to administer and they are slow. The mills of the gods grind slowly-but fine; the tax laws grind even more slowly and many a rat escapes while the corn is being sifted. In every city of size, some unscrupulous landlords fill their old, dilapidated buildings with people who must be housed, and who are forced to pay high rentals. Out of this evil, has grown the public housing projects as a remedy. The landlord who provides no maintenance, makes no repairs, and pays no taxes contributes to this situation. When, after five or ten years the tax laws catch up with this landlord, he takes his ill gotten gains, having paid no taxes, and the poor old building reverts to public ownership and the chapter is closed. This condition must be remedied. Our tax enforcement laws need teeth-and to give them teeth should be the first order of business in every city.

Chicago

Chicago is in a better position with regard to Negro housing than most large cities, because of its facilities and its attitude toward the colored race. Not that either the Negro leaders or the white people of the city are satisfied with the present conditions, but in comparison with other major cities, housing authorities do feel that Chicago has done a great deal for the people who are in the lower income brackets. The Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments, which are so ably managed by Robert R. Taylor, is only one of the monuments to Julius Rosenwald who spent most of his great fortune in bettering conditions among Negroes. In Chicago the geographical location of many of the colored neighbor-

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hoods bring about their own class distinctions. The Washington Park race track apartments are as clean and wholesome as any to be found in a good white neighborhood and the surroundings are pleasant. North of 47th Street, conditions are not so good, and south of 39th Street, conditions worsen.
The colored people of Chicago do not look upon segregation with favor, as do many foreign groups in the city who prefer to live in communities, but at the same time Negroes do not want to be dependent on relief and subsidy. They ask for equality of opportunity. A large percentage of them are industrious, hard working people, although because of a lack of training, they are not always thrifty.
Chicago's Negro district extends from 12th Street to 71st Street on the south and from Wentworth to Cottage Grove Avenue. In this area, embracing about twelve square miles, live 80 per cent of the colored people of the city. The property surrounding the northern part of this section is in poor condition, it pays little return on investment, and the entire atmosphere is one of blight and dilapidation. However, from 63rd Street to 71st Street, there is a high percentage of home ownership and the area is well kept and attractive. Values of property surrounding it have not been reduced and it does prove that the right type of housing, occupied by civilly interested Negroes does not always detract from the values of surrounding parcels of residential plots. Most of Chicago's residential sections are under restrictive covenants, at least 80 per cent, according to Robert R. Taylor, vice chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority. These restrictive covenants are based on two beliefs: (1) Negro occupancy causes property values to depreciate, (2) the need and desire for residential segregation.
A great deal of time and thought is being put into postwar planning for the city. Dr. Homer Hoyt, who has vision combined with practicality has planned a Chicago of one hundred years hence, toward which all people can build and plan. Groups of all races can find living conditions to their liking and they can build up their com-munity, restricted by preference and as a basis for community living, where like meets like and becomes mutually helpful to the entire group. None of these changes will come over night, and the problem in Chicago is just as complicated as it is anywhere, but in this great brawling city, there is room for all-the prairies stretch away in three directions-living room is still available. Transportation is at present a problem, but that can be solved when once again production power is turned to domes-tic needs.
There are six great housing projects built with Federal aid in Chicago, the Jane Adams, Julia Lathrop, Trumbell Park, Ida B. Wells, The Cabrini homes, and the Illinois 2-2-B. The last two mentioned are not completely occupied but the first four are providing clean, well kept homes for 15,950 people. When the other two are completely and fully occupied they will provide housing for 5,000 more. This is the pattern for Chicago, and already private enterprise is turning toward some plan whereby decent living quarters for the large segment of the population who now live in slums can be provided.
The Mecca situation must be spoken of in this study for it combines all the problems of housing and might indeed provide a pattern for any city to study with care. Mecca is a great sprawling tenement house, sheltering over five hundred families. It is located within the Negro district on property owned by the Illinois Institute of Technology. It is fifty years old. It is in

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terrible condition, dilapidated, rundown, and it is a health menace. It has no fire protection and could well be a fire trap that might be the death of many of the families living inside its old walls. Recently the school decided that it must be torn down. They needed the ground. The danger to life was so great, they no longer wanted to assume responsibility for the possible hazards. But there is a war on-no large scale building is possible in Chicago. There are no vacancies, so where will these five hundred families, with their service stars in their windows, their great throngs moving in and out to war plant shifts, go? The only possible compromise is to let the families continue to occupy the old landmark until after the war, and then the great projects, planned by forward looking leaders will provide space for these people. The old building, which might well be a back-drop for a Porgy and Bess play-a Catfish row building at its worst-can be razed and the present dwellers will rejoice to see it go. A bill preventing the demolition of the structure passed the legislature, was vetoed by the Governor on its constitutionality but was decided in court in favor of the tenants. After the war, it will be razed. So often people "view with alarm"-and see only one side, but there is a middle road, there is a solution and the leaders of both groups can be depended upon to choose the plan which will work for the greatest good for the greatest number as soon as building materials are available.
Princeton Park, a private development on an eighty acre tract at 95th Street is planned and ready to be built, the first unit will provide 230 families with homes, and will total when completed, housing accommodations for 900 family groups.

Denver
Denver was selected as part of this study to show that even the cities of the west have a color line problem. It shows no signs of abatement by natural causes, in fact, it becomes progressively worse. None of our major cities can afford to hide their heads in the sand and say "We have no problem, our geographic location makes us immune." There is no immunity with the mobility of travel, and the desire in every man's heart, black or white, to improve his living condition.
The cry of "Land" is just as clear today as it was that morning in 1492. The Denver problem as well as the situation on our western seaboard is complicated by other racial groups which do not amalgamate. Increasing numbers of Mexicans, Orientals, particularly the Japanese, as well as the Negro groups present an ever increasing housing problem.
Race prejudice operates where these groups are involved, in fact the Negro who moves into the western areas of our country is likely to find his situation much improved, because as yet the problem does not involve great numbers. Being in the main a high class type of Negro, the western moving Negroes encounter very little racial prejudice and while they live in sections which are not the best in the city, there is less restrictive zoning, and fewer slums as compared with eastern and southern cities of comparable size.

Denver has a population of 313,810 whites (which includes Mexican groups) and 7,836 Negroes. Approximately 80 per cent of the Negroes of Denver live in an area in Denver bounded by 19th Avenue, Park Avenue, Champa Street, 32nd Avenue, and High Street. In 1930 residential vacancies in this area were greater than in any other part of the city, but with a great influx of Mexicans into the western half of the district, the vacancies have fallen much below that of the rest of the city.

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242 The Appraisal Journal, July 1943
This area is surrounded by two parks and by the South Platte River and Cherry Creek. What effect these boundaries will have on the growth of the district cannot be estimated.
This section is one of the older parts of the city and many of the large single family houses have been converted into multiple family homes. In 1939, Denver did find it necessary to obstruct expansion by restrictive deeds, many of which appear to have expired in 1941.
The average assessed valuation on the standard twenty-five foot lot in this Negro area is $390, as compared with those surrounding it which range from $148 on the north, to $2,951 for lots which lie adjacent to and directly west.
The survey shows further that 60 per cent or more of the homes in this section are substandard, and that under 20 per cent are owner occupied. The old pattern repeats itself in these young cities, and all that is needed is time, and the slum flourishes. In this section, the median rental is under $18 per month, while in the surrounding areas the median lies between $25 and $35 per month. The median family income in the area is under $1,000 annually, and the delinquency and infant mortality is high.
So far it would appear that because of the scarcity in numbers of the Negro groups, the problem is not so great in Denver, but the ingredients are all at hand to whip up and serve a first class slum condition with the passing of the years.
Here is a situation made to order. Low cost housing projects financed by private capital, and established in this old section would prevent slums. Decent housing would hold the value of property at a proper market level and it would serve to lead the way out of the pit of indifference into which many cities have fallen.

What To Do
It has been stated that many Negro tenants do not keep up their property. They take over a good dwelling and let it run down. They are destructive and careless. They let rubbish accumulate in their yards. They do not value privacy. They are often poor tenants and impossible neighbors.
The Negro and white leaders in April, 1943, sat down in a clinic in New York to examine these allegations and to determine to what extent they are true or false. They are significant factors in the development of patterns of residential segregation. Upon the basis of these charges, many real estate men refuse to rent or sell homes to Negroes in any save established Negro neighborhoods and banks turn down applications for loans for the purchase or construction of homes for Negroes.
This whole situation operates in a vicious circle. The Negro is corralled in the slums and blighted areas, he is charged excessive rents, blamed for the conditions prevailing in those areas, and denied opportunity to move out or to obtain adequate financial assistance for improvements to dwellings within his districts. Even the government, working to improve conditions has frequently antagonized private building capital.

Certainly, there are isolated communities of well kept homes occupied by Negro families who have substantial income. These families have been fortunate enough to escape the slums and blighted areas in which the masses of colored people are mired.
Until victory has been won, the slum-clearance program either by government or private capital is necessarily deferred. There are no building materials for homes outside of defense areas. Materials are scarce enough even for war housing. Projects built under the peacetime FPHA pro-

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gram will be managed in the best interests of their residents and their communities. But slum-clearance projects for low-income families cannot be built for the duration.
Values of the real estate property in the vicinity of many low-rent public housing projects occupies by Negros increased during the last eighteen months, according to a recently completed survey by the Federal Public Housing Authority.

From the Records
Records in this office of the Building Inspector for the District of Columbia show that during the past 18 months permits of approximately $500,000 have been issued for the construction of homes in the neighborhood of Langston in Washington, D.C. on land that was vacant when Langston was constructed. These permits were for 116 buildings containing 134 dwelling units.
Commenting on the effect of the construction of Langston on neighborhood real estate, one contractor who has built sixty-two homes on adjacent properties since the FPHA project was completed, declared it to be a "stabilizing factor."
"The physical development of Langston has been helpful to the private investor," he said. "It has put stability into the neighborhood. I expect to see a total of around 1,000 homes built on adjoining property during the next five years. There is a big field for the erection of modern homes in the neighborhood for families whose incomes are above the maximum for residence in Langston."
According to real estate dealers in Atlantic City, property values in that city have decreased in all sections during the last two years except in the area adjacent to the Stanley S. Holmes Village where there is a decided demand for rentals that did not exist prior to the opening of the project.
In Evansville, it was estimated, property values near Lincoln Gardens increased as much as 25 per cent. A subdivision is being developed near Durkeeville in Jacksonville where $75,800 is being spent for grading, paving, and sewerage. The development anticipates the construction of one hundred new homes before the end of the year.
Miami reported: "Property has tripled in value about one hundred homes and ten business establishments constructed in adjacent area at low estimated cost of $122,000."
Memphis property owner said that the value of their property in the vicinity of Dixie Homes had increased fifteen per cent. " The decline in delinquency and in property damages has been remarkable."
From Columbia it was reported that the effect of University Terrace on surrounding property values was "very favorable."
Commenting on the findings of this survey, Dr. Robert C. Weaver, Special Assistant to the Administrator, said:
"The charge has frequently been made that Negro occupancy always results in the depreciation of surrounding property values. This charge is refuted by the findings which clearly indicate a rise in the value of property in the vicinity of public housing projects occupied by low- income Negro families."

A Group Expression
So far this paper has given the public housing picture and such a picture is colorful and convincing. There is, however, the other side of the tapestry and we must look up on that before we draw our final conclusion. The American Institute of Architects met recently in Cincinnati. Their committee on postwar reconstruction had this to say regarding the public housing program and it is well worth quoting in this connection.

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"The public housing program carried out during the past decade segregated the lower third of the population, and undermined the democratic foundations of community life."
"Before it is too late, the nation should prepare to avert a repetition of the disastrous experiences with previous building booms in residence construction, and recognize the community design as the basis of a program of action.
"In the public housing program there was much copying of European practice, with emphasis on regimentation."
"This regimentation took two forms; first, the monotonous, on home like repetition of barrack-buildings end of institutional group plans; and, second the segregation of the 'lower third' of the population into concentrations were community amenities were insufficient and where contacts were served with other economic and social groups.
"The public housing projects suffer from a failure to maintain the democratic cross-section of American life that is both the foundation and the motive power of our civilization. Although the dictates of government may have had much to do with the barren quality of the design, it was the ceilings imposed both upon rent and upon the income of tenants that forced the type of design and necessitated the segregation.
"It is time for the architectural profession to issue its declaration of independence and to reserve to itself the dignity it should have as the custodian of housing and land development. When this is done, there will be a surge forward in the development of the individual house-both single and row types-and, in some cases, of multiple dwelling units of far greater value to our American way of life than much of the product of Government bureaus.
"In all the discussion that rages about housing, architects should keep in mind the fact that in the disproportionate relation of the incomes of users of housing to building cost lies the crux of the housing program problem. This disparity is the basis of the calls upon government to intervene with subsidies. It is for architects to lead in a movement really to cut housing costs all along the line, from the cost of construction, partly caused by obsolete building codes, to the cost of land, of taxation and of finance.
"This done, the general program of post-war reconstruction should provide full employment at good wages and so greatly reduce the ranks of the lower third. Then, when the sub-marginal population US becomes a tiny fraction, a new policy may arise-rent subsidies being granted to the individual in those cases where the individual can be nearly self-supporting, instead of subsidies made to the buildings, as now; and an enlightened program of institutional guidance developed for the remainder, the 'unemployables.'
"Another failure of housing technique-observed in private operations as well as public-is faulty integration with the master plan of the city and the district and neighborhood. The relationship of housing to other parts of the city, Industries, business, parks, shopping, and to the transportation and traffic system, is rudimentary.
"Mechanical repetition of units is prevalent and so is failure to provide sufficient community facilities to make these huge collections of hundreds of thousands of homes what they should be, namely, villages and towns and neighborhoods fairly complete in themselves."

Figures Show
To return to the original question: Does Negro occupancy have a tendency to blight only the given area where it occurs, or

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does it blight the surrounding white area with a corresponding decrease in valuation and a loss of tenants?
On the following page, tables of dollar values per front foot, by blocks, are shown. This is border line property and over a thirty year period. The Negro occupancy is indicated by a rule in the first to streets, one of which is all Negro and one which is all white, divided by Cottage Grove Avenue.
If we make further comparisons of the area we find that in 1912 the values on Drexel Boulevard and Grand Boulevard were about the same, and in 1932 the values on Drexel were substantially the same, showing they had held their own through that period, but looking at Grand Boulevard we find the values have dropped to a much lower figure. On Drexel Boulevard the values in 1943 were 40 per cent of the 1912 values, while on Grand Boulevard for the same period the values were only 20 per cent of the 1912 valuation. Grand Boulevard was a high class residential street in 1912. In 1943 it is physically the same but the values have been cut in half as compared with Drexel Boulevard which is still all white.
These figures, taken from the records prove that the threat of Negro occupancy does have a definite influence on property values. The solution must come from these sources; namely, the owners, the city, and the Negroes themselves.

What Can Be Done?
Improvements must be made. Adequate housing must be provided and present possible areas must be expanded, but these must be expanded into areas which will not be adversely affected. We are practicing false economy when we wreck good white communities and tear them down to provide adequate Negro housing. We should rather provide Negro housing in areas not now occupied by people who have no desire to move.
When there is a threat of a Negro invasion there is a tendency for better whites to move away. The poorer whites who are financially unable to buy in more expensive areas are forced to remain.
One of the difficult situations that arises is the fact that insurance companies and money loaning agencies at once refuse to make loans in neighborhoods which are threatened by the Negro invasion. This fact, and the fact that people begin at once to move out-resuling in a greater number of buildings offered for sale, cuts down market value.
The second generation of old families often wish to move to other communities and as the older people in the family die, their homes-the mansions of the Eighties-are dumped on the market and sold at low prices. Owners of properties in the threatened district are discouraged from improving their property or maintaining it in good condition and that also depreciates the neighborhood.
If the threat of Negro invasion is removed, the younger people are often willing to remain in the old home, and as property owners take pride in maintaining their neighborhoods. It is essential that the property owners are given protection and confidence so they can continue their pride in their own community and so they will encourage other good families to settle there.
Negroes and white do not live together in harmony in one community, except in rare cases, and when the Negro moves in the whites move out. T
herefore it is most desirable that communities now occupied by Negroes be im-

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246 The Appraisal Journal, July 1943
TABLE OF COMPARATIVE VALUES?
DOLLAR VALUE PER FRONT FOOT BY BLOCKS
Left of Black line -White. Right of Black line -Negro

PRAIRIE AVENUE

Street 1912 1922 1932 1943
31st 80 60 50 20
32nd 80 55 45 18
33rd 60 55 40 18
35th 60 48 40 20
37th 60 45 40 20
39th 60 45 40 30
40th 80 80 50 30
41st 75 75 45 30
42nd 65 75 45 30
43rd 75 75 45 30
44th 80 80 70 35
45th 90 80 80 35
46th 90 80 60 35
47th 90 90 75 36
48th 90 80 80 40
49th 90 80 70 40
50th 85 75 70 40
51st 85 85 60 40

SOUTH PARTWAY
formerly Grand Boulevard
Street 1912 1922 1932 1943
All White All Black
31st 100 80 175** 35
32nd 100 80 175** 35
33rd 100 85 175** 35
35th 100 85 175** 35
37th 125 105 100 35
39th 200 150 125 40
40th 150 150 150 50
41st 175 125 125 45
42nd 200 125 125 45
43rd 200 150 125 45
44th 225 150 150 50
45th 225 175 175 55
46th 225 150 150 50
47th 225 150 200 90
48th 275 175 200 90
49th 250 175 125 55
50th 225 150 125 55
51st 250 200 150 55

ST. LAWRENCE AVENUE
(All Negro-one block west and parallel to Cottage Grove Avenue)
Street 1912 1922 1932 1943
41st 50 35 - -
42nd 50 35 - -
43rd 50 35 30 25
44th 55 40 40 25
45th 55 40 40 25
46th 65 45 45 25
47th 70 40 55 25
48th 60 50 55 25
49th 60 50 55 25
50th 60 60 55 25
51st 70 75 - -

DREXEL BOULEVARD
(All White-one block east of and parallel to Cottage Grove Avenue-threatened by Negro occupancy)

Street 1912 1922 1932 1943
41st 150 200 200 75
42nd 200 175 200 80
43rd 200 200 225 90
44th 200 200 275 100
45th 250 225 375 100
46th 275 275 300 100
47th 275 200 325 110
48th 300 275 275 110
49th 275 250 375 110
50th 300 265 300 110
51st 250 - 350 -

----
?All figures taken from Olcott's Land Values Blue Book of Chicago for year indicated.
**Changed to commercial area due to street widening.

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Both Sides of the Color Line 247
proved and rehabilitated, that new buildings be built, new schools and recreational facilities be established and the area be expanded where there is need and where expansion will not destroy present existing property rights and values of others.
Presenting the other side of the picture in regard to public housing projects, private capital is discouraged from going into areas where tax-free projects are in operation or are potential. There is little if any possibility of new capital taking the risk of such competition. At the present time, with existing restrictions against new housing construction, plus rent control, plus resistance to such a program by every government agency connected with housing, these added together, do not tend to encourage investment of capital.
The Federal Government, through its housing agencies should rather encourage individuals and institutions to build in Negro areas where such housing is needed. They should make concessions and assist in planning. They could do much to encourage those interested in doing something. they would then set the example, become the pattern, if you please, and lead the way to better housing conditions for the so-called submerged one-third of our population. An effort should be made to eliminate red tape and the Government could well afford to do all the work necessary in assisting those who might be encouraged to provide not only capital but necessary business experience.

Summary
Men cannot be equal unless they are equal in something to quote Antoine De Sant Exupery and we hear much of the equality of man these days. We are fighting a war to prove it. Can anyone deny that the Negro should be given the opportunity to earn for himself, adequate housing? The population of this country is almost 130 millions and there are 13 million Negroes in these United States. This means that one person in 10 is a Negro. Yet a Negro baby has only 60 per cent of a white baby's chance to live.
A room which would cost a white tenant seven or eight dollars a month will cost a Negro ten dollars a month. On the basis of income the Negro pays about 20 per cent more for his housing than the white tenant does. Approximately 25 per cent of one's gross income should go into shelter, but when the annual gross income is $700 and always less than $1000 per year, the only living quarters that are obtainable are slums.
The Federal Public Housing Authority has pointed the way and already private capital is planning for the future when building materials will be available. Prosperous Negroes are members of planning boards and kindred organizations. They, too, are looking forward to what can be done in the near future as well as making long time plans.
Before we can meet this housing need our entire jumble of tax laws will have to be recoded and given teeth. There is under way a co-operative movement among Negroes themselves, for any group which is under pressure work best in co-operation with each other. This movement among the Negroes operates district by district, and as some of the dwellers in the area become interesting in the improvements and betterment of the area, they bring others into the group.
Under the present system a Negro can rent an old building for sixty dollars per month and because of the terrific demand for housing this space can be leased or rented by the room for as much as $125 per month. Rehabilitation of some of the

[26]
248 The Appraisal Journal, July 1943
better buildings and placing them under Negro management would insure return on investment, adequate to amount invested. This may be a solution for some of the lower income groups. This, of course, would have a salutary effect on surrounding property.
For the higher income group, say those in the $2400 brackets, new housing units of twelve to twenty four-room apartment buildings might be built, at a cost of $1500 per room for construction. These four-room apartments could well rent for fifty dollars per month. This is in line with budget recommendations.
Property owners should reserve and have the right to restrict the area in which they live. If this is to be a free country, we should be able to choose in the larger sense our neighbors, our schools, our parks, and our churches. In addition, citizens should always have the right to determine in a general way what locality or neighborhood they prefer to live in, provided they can live there and live within their income.
When one colored family moves into a given area the bars in a way are down. Soon the lower living standard group move in and the surrounding area becomes blighted because of the proximity of the undesirable group. The Negroes themselves know and appreciate this fact. They are working on some solution, and while it will be a difficult solution in each locality because of many points and counter-points, a solution will be found.
We have two courses open to us and we will have to make a choice soon. The first one is to continue to allow the Negro to "take over" our castoff sections of the city, watch the property surrounding it drop steadily in value, and sit by and see the slums creep ever closer like a river in the jungle. Our city under such conditions becomes a pauper's shroud, all front and no back.
The other course is the rehousing program, which has been outlined in this article. In addition we must all take an action, intelligent interest in this serious problem.
A child who learns to walk with crutches is afraid to throw them away and stand alone. When the Negroes were set free during the War between the States, they were as children. Children who could neither stand alone nor walk properly. They began with pitiful effort, and had to be helped. They, of necessity, looked to the white groups for leadership and for aid. This they received in varying amounts and with varying effects upon their personalities.
Perhaps the time has come, as it should come, for the Negro to assume leadership of his own group. Perhaps he has walked too long with crutches. He is a taxpayer and a citizen. He is part of this great country, in which there is room for all. We no longer hold a brief for slavery or serfdom. We have abolished ''physical'' slavery but there is a ''mental'' slavery and the Negro is loath to cast that off as the white man is to become detached, and yet it is such an intangible bondage that those who are bound, realize it the least. Stated bluntly it means that the time has come for the Negro leaders to assume complete responsibility and to work with, not for the white groups. In this article, written with this in mind, is outlined some of the steps. The way is open, not by force, not by iron bound demands, but in a spirit of good will to establish these things.
The great and good Negroes have the same traits of character as our great and good white men, gentleness, modesty, kindliness, understanding, and humility. We have many white people who do not possess these characteristics, just as we have

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Both Sides of the Color Line 249
many Negroes who do not have them. It is the color of the heart, not the color of the skin, and we can do much to improve this condition among the Negroes by encouraging them to become good citizens without the opposition they have thus far encountered.
To sum it all up Negroes need a good basic education, they need to understand and practice the rules of health in wholesome surroundings, they should be permitted to earn a decent living, it should be possible for them to have and maintain a home in a respectable community, and they must be permitted to have pride and respect for their own racial culture .
Unless we work out this problem, which is with us like the Old Man of the Sea, how can we, as a nation, solve the problem of other people in other lands-and yet we are starry-eyed at the thought of doing something for those people so far away.
Teach our Negroes to stand alone, and then give them a place to stand. Respect their rights as human beings and then expect them to respect the white man's rights, in turn.
Racial groups can live in the same country without impingement and without friction if they are willing to grant to each other the rights they themselves ask for.
There is no simple solution-but there is a solution-like a cure for cancer. Some day we will find it and we will wonder why we had not thought of it before. It should come soon.

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These articles are re-printed from the January and July, 1943, issues of the Appraisal Journal published by the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers, National Association of Real Estate Boards, 22 West Monroe, Chicago, Illinois. Journal issued quarterly, subscription price $5.00 per year.