How to Destroy a Suburb

The formula is a simple one. Take a suburb, respectable, blue-collar tinged, in the path of an expanding black community. Most of the houses should be of the one-and two-family variety, though a scattering of three-deckers is all to the good. Be sure that the residents have lived there at least a generation to ensure that the twenty-year 5 per cent mortgages have been paid off. Avoid any Celtic enclaves. These are intractable, pugnacious, and tend to irrationality in defense of what they consider their rights. An aging Jewish neighborhood is to be recommended—law-abiding folk, long conditioned to tolerance.

Next step is to get a group of banks together to cordon off the area. Within it they will grant mortgages to all applicants at the current 8.5 or 9 per cent—mortgages guaranteed, of course, by the Federal Housing Administration. Outside it—not a chance! For blacks trying to break out of the slums, here at least, and at last, is a chance of owning their own homes in ampler surroundings and with little or no downpayment. The banks do not discriminate, but no white would now consider buying within the cordoned area.

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Francis Russell

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The formula is a simple one. Take a suburb, respectable, blue-collar tinged, in the path of an expanding black community. Most of the houses should be of the one-and two-family variety, though a scattering of three-deckers is all to the good. Be sure that the residents have lived there at least a generation to ensure that the twenty-year 5 per cent mortgages have been paid off. Avoid any Celtic enclaves. These are intractable, pugnacious, and tend to irrationality in defense of what they consider their rights. An aging Jewish neighborhood is to be recommended—law-abiding folk, long conditioned to tolerance.

Next step is to get a group of banks together to cordon off the area. Within it they will grant mortgages to all applicants at the current 8.5 or 9 per cent—mortgages guaranteed, of course, by the Federal Housing Administration. Outside it—not a chance! For blacks trying to break out of the slums, here at least, and at last, is a chance of owning their own homes in ampler surroundings and with little or no downpayment. The banks do not discriminate, but no white would now consider buying within the cordoned area.