Thread by @WillMcAvoyACN

So, since Donald Trump has (falsely) claimed over the last few days that Joe Biden wants to destroy the suburbs, let's take a look at the history of suburban America, and why you cannot talk about suburbs without talking about institutionalized racism. This will be a THREAD.

Suburban America began before World War II, but that was a different kind of suburban American. It largely was confined to New York City and Boston, and relied on public transportation via train to make commuting viable for these communities. They were mostly upper middle class.

The true AMERICAN suburb began after World War II. As one might expect, during the war new housing and even upkeep of existing housing largely was absent, and so when the war ended and the post-war boom began, people began looking for alternatives.

The mass production machine that had helped the Allies win the war had gone to work on vehicles, with all kinds of new efficiencies and improvements, lowering their costs and creating more demand for suburban living throughout the country.

The first true American suburb was Levittown, New York, which we've discussed before, but I'll go into a bit more detail now.

The story of Levittown begins before the war, with a man named Bill Levitt, who built custom upper-middle class private homes on Long Island.

Now, when Levitt return from the war he became convinced there was going to be a post-war housing boom, and he also knew from the war that they could use some of the military tactics to quickly build needed buildings to create his new vision: Levittown.

At this time Long Island was mostly potato and onion farms from immigrants. Levitt used his existing fortune to purchase a number of these farms in order to achieve his vision for a new way of living. An entire subdivision for 300 families was built between May and October, 1947.

The community was originally planned to be a rental community, but after early successes Levitt was able to offer no money down 30-year mortgages at the same rate as the rental houses, and the resulting boom led to a massive expansion of Levittown.

While largely cited at the origin of the AMERICAN DREAM of home ownership in a safe community away from the bustle of city life, this dream was not one that was shared by Black Americans. Not for lack of desire, but due to CLAUSE 25.

This clause, written in large, bold, capitalized letters informed persons buying the homes in this, the first affordable American suburb that the homes could not "be used or occupied by any person other than members of the Caucasian race."

Now it should be noted that this was done in accordance with the Federal Housing Administration's policies at the time. The FHA would not offer mortgages to mixed communities where white and non-white families lived side by side.

Levitt put profits over people, there's no doubt.

What are the legacies of such policies? Well, Levittown is a suburb just outside New York City with relatively affordable housing. The current population is almost entirely white. Of the 51,881 residents in Levittown in 2010, less than 500 were black.

Levitt's company continued building communities until 2007, when they were one of the victims of the housing bubble. Yet the legacy of Levitt homes, which quickly spread throughout the country, lives through this day.

You see, at a time when home ownership was booming in America, the federal government was pushing whites into suburban areas and blacks into urban areas. When you understand that population density is one of the biggest influences on crime, you can imagine how that turned out.

Eventually, in the 50s and 60s overtly discriminatory lending practices and lease clauses were invalidated, but housing discrimination continued. But keep in mind that the average cost for a home adjusted for inflation has more than doubled since the 1960s.

And that's despite the fact that homes built in the 1950s and 1960s are not significantly better made than houses built after that time frame. While there have been design improvements, procedures largely remain the same.

For the last 70 years white families were able to watch as their suburban property grew in value, while minority families were left behind. Tax funds for schooling were allocated so that the suburban schools would get more money than the city schools.

While the trend has waned in recent years, houses have traditionally been passed down from one generation to the next allowing for the accumulation of wealth. Home ownership rates for white Americans is above 70%. For Black Americans it is close to 40%.

To this day housing discrimination exists. There are white neighborhoods and there are Black neighborhoods. This is not a mistake, nor is it self-segregation. It is the result of policies that have existed in the past and unwritten biases that persist through this day.

Police departments in these white suburbs have been taught--generation by generation--that Black people do not live in them and do not belong in them, so they view any Black person in these locations as if they are a criminal.

Just because the FHA isn't refusing to let mortgages in mixed communities doesn't mean that they are actively trying to encourage housing diversity--as if you could ever have an opportunity to do so again.

These problems are complicated and people pretend like they don't exist.

We must have a conversation about the legacy of discriminatory housing policies in the United States, instead of pretending like it is an issue we solved with a court ruling or a law in the Civil Rights Era. It persists to this day.