Detroit's wall
Detroit's Wall , The Wall , is a small, inconspicuous wall in a Detroit residential area with the backdrop of racial segregation (residential segregation by race).
description
Today the wall in Detroit is sometimes called the Mini Berlin Wall or Wailing Wall , but most residents don't know much about the history of its origins. The wall was built in 1940 and runs south of Eight Mile and near Joe Luis Park, between Mendota and Birdwood Streets.
The area east of the wall originally consisted of a provisional settlement of black immigrants who, in the 1920s, preferred what was then still very natural land to urban life. When a new housing estate for white owners was to be built in the immediate vicinity in 1940, the state funding for this could only be obtained by building the wall.
Funding
This condition was formally imposed by the Federal Housing Administration , a US state agency established in 1934 in connection with the National Housing Act. The aim of the FHA is to enable an adequate standard of living under realistic conditions and to promote home ownership and the construction industry. The system secures the basic loan and thereby also stabilizes the financial market. The FTA leaves the allocation and handling of these funds largely to local politics.
Residential segregation by race
According to historian Thomas J. Sugrue, the phenomenon of segregated neighborhoods based on ethnicity is a typical sign of the unsolved problem of xenophobia in the United States. This is often to be found in the northern cities of the country and can be justified politically as well as stoking fears of the integration of immigrants through real estate agents. Between the 1940s and 1960s there was a striking number of attacks on immigrant families who wanted to move to a purely white residential area. The state support for single-family homes is a liberal attempt within the New Deal to secure a home for every American citizen, but the granting of the support in Detroit in the 1940s was in the hands of the Republican local politicians, which in turn ensured that the whites Keep residential districts white. In line with this, state-funded, social housing projects were launched that were intended exclusively for African Americans. The greatest example of this in Detroit is the Brewster-Douglass Housing Project of 1933.
present
Today, both east and west of the growing wall, almost exclusively black people live. The borders have moved further out of town, for example the multi-lane Eight Mile serves as a separating element between the more white suburbs of the middle class and the city of Detroit with over 80% African American residents.
literature
- Thomas J.Sugrue: The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit . Princeton University Press, United States 2005, ISBN 0-691-12186-9 .