Segregated by Design: How Urban Planning Shapes Racial Inequality

The story of the American city is a tale of progress and innovation, of skylines reaching for the heavens and arteries of commerce connecting a nation. But woven into this narrative of growth is a darker, more deliberate thread: a story of exclusion, of lines drawn on maps and walls erected, both visible and invisible. It is the story of how urban planning, the very discipline meant to shape orderly and functional cities for all, was systematically weaponized to create and perpetuate racial inequality. This is not a history of accidental outcomes or unforeseen consequences; it is a history of design.

From the quiet, tree-lined streets of all-white suburbs to the concrete-choked corridors of inner-city neighborhoods, the geography of our cities is a direct reflection of a century of discriminatory policies. These policies were not merely the product of individual prejudices but were codified in law, embedded in professional practice, and financed by the federal government. They have left a legacy that continues to shape the lives and opportunities of millions of Americans, creating a landscape of deeply entrenched racial disparities in wealth, health, education, and environmental quality. To understand the profound inequality that defines so many of our urban spaces today is to understand that they were, in fact, segregated by design.

The Foundation of Exclusion: Early 20th Century Practices

The seeds of modern urban segregation were sown in the early 20th century, a period of immense urban growth and social upheaval. As millions of African Americans began the Great Migration, moving from the rural South to industrial cities in the North and West to escape Jim Crow laws and seek economic opportunity, they were met with a new set of barriers designed to contain and control their presence. This era saw the birth of legal and extralegal tools that would systematically shape the racial composition of American neighborhoods for generations to come.

The Rise of Racial Zoning Ordinances

At the forefront of this new wave of segregation was the explicit use of city planning tools to enforce racial separation. In 1910, Baltimore passed the country's first racial zoning ordinance, a law that made it illegal for an African American person to move onto a block where the majority of residents were white, and vice versa. The stated justifications were steeped in the racist pseudoscience of the time, claiming that such measures were necessary to prevent public unrest, preserve property values, and even prevent the spread of disease.

The idea quickly spread. Cities across the country, from Virginia to Alabama to Georgia, followed Baltimore's lead, adopting similar laws that legally inscribed racial segregation into the very fabric of the urban landscape. These ordinances were a direct and unambiguous use of governmental power to dictate who could live where, based solely on race. While the U.S. Supreme Court struck down these explicit racial zoning laws in the 1917 case Buchanan v. Warley, it did so not on the grounds of racial discrimination, but because they interfered with the property rights of the white seller. This ruling, while ending the short-lived era of explicit racial zoning, left the door wide open for more insidious methods to achieve the same goal.

Racially Restrictive Covenants: The Power of the Deed

With overt racial zoning off the table, private agreements known as racially restrictive covenants became the primary tool for enforcing housing segregation. These were clauses inserted into property deeds that prohibited the sale, lease, or even occupation of a property by members of specific racial or ethnic groups. These covenants "ran with the land," meaning the restriction was legally binding on all future buyers of the property, often in perpetuity.

The language used in these documents was shockingly blunt and dehumanizing. A common clause found in deeds across the country, from Seattle to Washington D.C., read: "...hereafter no part of said property or any portion thereof shall be… occupied by any person not of the Caucasian race." Some covenants were even more specific, listing a wide array of excluded groups. Deeds in King County, Washington, for example, often barred "persons of the Ethiopian race, or by Japanese or Chinese, or any other Malay or Asiatic race." Other targeted groups included Jews, Syrians, Persians, and "Hebrews." The terminology of the era was often crude and sweeping; "Ethiopians" was used to mean all people of African descent, while "Mongolians" referred to all East Asians. An exception was commonly made for "domestic servants" of a different race, a chilling reminder of the desired social hierarchy.

These covenants were not just isolated agreements between a few homeowners. They were promoted and enforced by real estate boards, neighborhood associations, and developers who saw them as a way to guarantee the stability and "desirability" of new subdivisions. The practice became so widespread that after a 1926 Supreme Court decision, Corrigan v. Buckley, validated their use, they became a standard feature of real estate development across the nation. The federal government itself would soon become the most powerful proponent of this discriminatory tool.

Sundown Towns: Exclusion through Terror

Beyond the legalistic mechanisms of zoning and covenants, a more brutal form of segregation took hold in thousands of American communities: the "sundown town." These were all-white municipalities that explicitly excluded non-whites, particularly African Americans, after dark. The name originated from the signs often posted at the town limits, which warned, "Nigger, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on You in..."

Enforcement of these exclusionary policies ranged from discriminatory local laws and police harassment to outright violence and intimidation. Following the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877, a period that had seen Black Americans gain some political rights, a national backlash reasserted white supremacist control. Beginning around 1890, hundreds of towns, particularly in the Midwest, Appalachia, and the West, forcibly expelled their Black residents. This was often accomplished through violent race riots where white mobs would attack Black neighborhoods, destroying homes and businesses and killing residents, forcing survivors to flee.

Historian James W. Loewen's research documented thousands of these towns across the country. From Pekin, Illinois, which hosted large Ku Klux Klan rallies, to Monett, Missouri, which had signs warning Black people to leave by sunset, these communities created a geography of fear for African Americans. This violent enforcement of all-white spaces dramatically narrowed the places where Black people could safely live, contributing to their concentration in urban ghettos. The existence of so many sundown towns meant that even simple travel could be perilous, leading to the creation of guides like The Negro Motorist Green Book, which helped Black travelers navigate the country by identifying safe places to eat, sleep, and get gas.

The Federal Government as Architect of Segregation

While local ordinances and private agreements laid the groundwork for a segregated America, it was the federal government's intervention in the housing market during the New Deal that institutionalized these practices on a massive, national scale. Policies created to combat the housing crisis of the Great Depression and spur homeownership were designed from the outset to primarily benefit white Americans, effectively creating a government-sponsored system of racial segregation.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Redlining

The creation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 1934 was a landmark in American housing policy. The FHA did not build homes or directly lend money; instead, it insured long-term mortgages made by private banks, making homeownership accessible to a broad swath of the middle class for the first time. However, this revolutionary program was built on a foundation of profound racial bias.

To determine which loans it would insure, the FHA developed a rigid and discriminatory appraisal system. The agency created "Residential Security Maps" for cities across the country, color-coding neighborhoods to indicate their perceived mortgage lending risk. These maps were created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) but were adopted and institutionalized by the FHA.

Neighborhoods were graded on a scale from A to D:

"A" (Green): These were deemed the "Best" areas for lending. They were new, homogenous, and exclusively white.
"B" (Blue): "Still Desirable," these were also considered safe bets for investment.
"C" (Yellow): Labeled "Definitely Declining," these areas were often older and sometimes had an "infiltration" of what the FHA termed "inharmonious racial groups."
"D" (Red): Labeled "Hazardous," these neighborhoods were considered the riskiest for mortgage lending. These areas were almost invariably where Black, immigrant, and working-class families lived.

This practice became known as redlining. The FHA's Underwriting Manual was explicit in its racial bias, warning appraisers to look for "inharmonious racial or nationality groups" and recommending the use of racially restrictive covenants to maintain neighborhood stability. The manual stated, "If a neighborhood is to retain stability it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes."

The consequences were devastating. Redlining systematically starved Black and other minority neighborhoods of mortgage capital, preventing residents from buying or repairing their homes. It made it virtually impossible for these communities to build wealth through home equity, the primary vehicle for middle-class wealth accumulation in America. At the same time, the FHA overwhelmingly favored and subsidized the construction of new, all-white suburbs, fueling "white flight" from urban centers and contributing to the decay of the very neighborhoods it refused to invest in. Between 1934 and 1962, a staggering 98% of the $120 billion in new housing subsidized by the federal government went to white Americans. This massive, government-backed investment in white homeownership—and disinvestment in communities of color—is a foundational cause of the vast racial wealth gap that persists today.

Public Housing and the Concentration of Poverty

Federal housing policy also played a direct role in segregating urban areas through its public housing programs. Initiated during the New Deal to address slum conditions, public housing was explicitly segregated from its inception. In many cities, integrated neighborhoods were demolished to make way for larger, segregated housing projects.

While intended to provide safe and decent housing, the implementation of public housing often served to reinforce and concentrate both poverty and racial segregation. Housing authorities frequently chose to build large-scale projects in already poor, Black neighborhoods, further isolating residents from economic opportunities and better-resourced parts of the city. In cities like Miami, a dual system was created where Black tenants were assigned to segregated projects while white tenants were given vouchers to subsidize rent in private apartments. In Los Angeles, projects were initially built in white neighborhoods and were reserved for white residents, leaving eligible Black families homeless even as units sat vacant.

Over time, these projects became warehouses for the very poor. Inadequate funding from the federal government for maintenance and operations led to deteriorating conditions. Policies like the 1969 Brooke Amendment, which capped rents at a percentage of a tenant's income, inadvertently made the projects less attractive to working families, leading to a higher concentration of the most destitute households. Instead of being a stepping stone to opportunity, public housing became a mechanism for trapping Black families in isolated pockets of deep poverty, a visible and enduring legacy of government-sponsored segregation.

The Bulldozer and the Wrecking Ball: Urban Renewal and Highway Construction

The second half of the 20th century saw a new, more physically destructive phase of segregation by design. Under the guise of "progress" and "modernization," two massive federal initiatives—urban renewal and the construction of the interstate highway system—were weaponized to decimate minority communities, displace hundreds of thousands of people, and carve new lines of segregation into the urban landscape.

"Urban Renewal is Negro Removal"

The Housing Act of 1949 established the federal policy of "urban renewal," a program that gave cities funds to acquire and clear areas designated as "slums" or "blighted" for redevelopment. While the stated goal was to improve cities by clearing dilapidated housing and revitalizing impoverished areas, the program disproportionately targeted Black neighborhoods. The term "blight" itself was often used as a racially coded euphemism for the presence of African Americans. So frequently were Black communities destroyed by these projects that the program earned the cynical moniker, "Negro Removal."

Across the country, vibrant, albeit often under-resourced, Black communities were leveled. These were not just collections of buildings, but established neighborhoods with deep social, cultural, and economic roots. They were home to Black-owned businesses, churches, and social clubs—the very institutions that fostered community resilience in the face of systemic racism. The destruction of these "Black Wall Streets," such as Tulsa's Greenwood District (rebuilt after the 1921 massacre only to be later decimated by urban renewal) and Durham's Hayti District, erased generations of cultural heritage and economic progress.

In Pittsburgh, the thriving Black community of the Hill District was sliced in half and thousands were displaced to build the Civic Arena. In Detroit, the Black Bottom neighborhood was razed, displacing families and businesses. The federal government funded cities to use eminent domain to seize private property, often compensating homeowners at below-market rates for the very properties that had been systematically devalued by redlining. The displaced families, predominantly Black, were given little assistance and were often forced into overcrowded, deteriorating public housing or other segregated neighborhoods, severing the intergenerational transfer of wealth and contributing directly to the racial wealth gap that exists today. By the time the urban renewal era wound down, over a million people had been displaced from their homes nationwide.

Highways as Weapons of Segregation

Running parallel to urban renewal was the largest public works project in American history: the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. This act authorized the construction of 41,000 miles of interstate highways, intended to connect cities, improve national defense, and eliminate traffic congestion. But for urban communities of color, this new transportation network was a disaster by design.

Highway planners and policymakers frequently routed the new interstates directly through the heart of Black and other minority neighborhoods. This was often a deliberate choice. These communities were seen as politically powerless and the path of least resistance. Furthermore, acquiring land in these neighborhoods was cheaper, a direct consequence of the depressed property values caused by decades of redlining and disinvestment. The highways were also consciously used as tools of segregation, creating massive concrete barriers to physically isolate and wall off Black communities from white ones. In Atlanta, Mayor William Hartsfield openly referred to Interstate 20 as the "boundary between the white and Negro communities."

The devastation was nationwide.

In Miami, the construction of I-95 through the culturally vibrant Overtown community, known as the "Harlem of the South," destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, reducing the population from an estimated 40,000 to just 8,000.
In St. Paul, Minnesota, the Rondo neighborhood, a thriving mixed-class Black community, was split in two by I-94, destroying an estimated 600 homes and 300 businesses.
In Los Angeles, the construction of I-10 sliced through the affluent Black neighborhood of Sugar Hill and displaced thousands from the multiethnic community of Boyle Heights.
In Nashville, planners intentionally added a curve to I-40 to spare a white community, instead routing it directly through a prominent Black business district.

Between 1957 and 1977, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the highway system displaced nearly 475,000 households—over a million people—the vast majority of whom were poor and non-white. The construction not only destroyed homes and businesses, wiping out significant potential for generational wealth, but it also left the remaining communities with a legacy of worsened air quality, noise pollution, and disrupted pedestrian landscapes, further depressing property values and quality of life.

The Modern Legacy: Segregation in the 21st Century

The explicitly racist policies of the past were outlawed by legislation like the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, and national origin. However, the law came with weak enforcement mechanisms and did little to undo the decades of damage that had already been done. The geographic and economic patterns established by a century of segregation by design did not simply disappear. They have evolved, taking on new forms that continue to perpetuate racial inequality in the 21st century.

Gentrification and Cultural Displacement

In recent decades, many of the same urban neighborhoods that were once deliberately disinvested and devalued have become attractive to new, wealthier, and often whiter residents. This process, known as gentrification, is driven by a renewed demand for central city living, often spurred by city planning initiatives and tax incentives aimed at redevelopment.

While gentrification can bring new investment, improved amenities, and rising property values to areas that have suffered from prolonged neglect, it is often accompanied by the displacement of longtime residents, who are disproportionately low-income people of color. As rents and property taxes skyrocket, existing residents are priced out, unable to benefit from the neighborhood's revitalization. This results in cultural displacement, where the demographic and cultural character of a community is fundamentally altered as affluent newcomers replace the incumbent population.

The scale of this displacement is significant. One study found that between 2000 and 2013, at least 135,000 Black and Hispanic residents were displaced from gentrifying neighborhoods in major American cities. In Washington, D.C., the most gentrified city by percentage, 20,000 Black residents were pushed out during this period. In Portland, Oregon, 13 percent of the entire Black community was displaced over a decade.

The process is particularly harmful to minority communities due to the enduring legacy of housing discrimination. Displaced white residents often have more options and tend to move to wealthier neighborhoods in the city or suburbs. In contrast, displaced Black residents, facing a racially stratified housing market, often end up in poorer, more disadvantaged neighborhoods, perpetuating cycles of concentrated poverty.

Environmental Racism: The Geography of Hazard

The historical segregation of communities of color has also created a landscape of profound environmental injustice. Environmental racism refers to the way in which communities of color and low-income populations are disproportionately subjected to environmental hazards, such as pollution from industrial facilities, landfills, and major highways. This is not a coincidence; it is the direct result of land-use decisions that have historically prioritized the health and well-being of white and wealthy communities over others.

The same redlined neighborhoods that were denied mortgages were often zoned for industrial use or had highways built through them. These areas were seen as less economically valuable and their residents lacked the political power to resist the placement of polluting facilities. As a result, today, Black Americans are 75% more likely than white Americans to live in "fence-line" communities, located next to commercial facilities that produce noise, odor, traffic, or toxic emissions.

The health consequences are severe and well-documented.

Cancer Alley: The 85-mile industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, which is home to a majority-Black population, contains around 150 oil refineries and petrochemical plants. Residents here face a disproportionately high risk of cancer and other serious health issues.
Asthma Alley: In the South Bronx, where the majority of residents are people of color, asthma rates for young children are alarmingly high, largely due to heavy traffic emissions from the multiple highways that cut through the area.
Flint, Michigan: The infamous water crisis, where the city's drinking water was contaminated with lead, occurred in a majority-Black city where over a third of the residents live in poverty. For years, residents' complaints were ignored by officials. Lead exposure is linked to severe health consequences, including brain impairment in children and heart and kidney disease in adults.

Studies have consistently shown that living in historically redlined areas is associated with a host of adverse health outcomes, including higher rates of preterm birth, gunshot-related injuries, asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and lower life expectancy. These disparities are a direct legacy of planning decisions that concentrated environmental burdens on the most vulnerable populations.

The Enduring Scars: Intergenerational Impacts

The policies that segregated American cities were not just about separating people. They were about systematically denying opportunities and extracting wealth, creating deep and lasting inequalities that are passed down through generations.

The Racial Wealth Gap

The single greatest driver of the racial wealth gap in the United States is the disparity in homeownership and home equity. For most American families, their home is their primary financial asset. By systematically denying Black families access to federally backed mortgages for decades through redlining, while simultaneously subsidizing white suburban homeownership, the government engineered a massive transfer of wealth to white Americans.

The devaluation of homes in Black neighborhoods further exacerbates this gap. Today, homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods are valued at an average of $48,000 less than comparable homes in predominantly white neighborhoods, resulting in a cumulative loss of $156 billion in equity. In 2019, the median wealth for a white family was $189,100, while for a Black family it was just $24,100—a gap of more than seven to one. This chasm is a direct result of housing policies that blocked Black families from the primary engine of middle-class wealth creation. This lack of generational wealth makes it harder for Black families to pay for college, start businesses, weather financial emergencies, and give their own children a down payment on a home, perpetuating the cycle of inequality.

Educational Inequality

Residential segregation is a primary driver of school segregation. Because school funding in the U.S. is heavily reliant on local property taxes, and school assignments are often based on neighborhood boundaries, segregated housing patterns inevitably lead to segregated and unequally resourced schools.

Schools in low-income, segregated neighborhoods are more likely to have less experienced teachers, larger class sizes, and fewer advanced courses and extracurricular activities. Black and Latino students are far more likely to attend high-poverty schools than their white peers. Studies show that growing up in a highly segregated metropolitan area is associated with lower rates of high school graduation for Black students. The chronic under-resourcing of schools in segregated neighborhoods contributes significantly to the persistent racial achievement gap. It is a stark reminder that it is not possible to address educational inequality without addressing the housing policies that create it.

Psychological and Social Trauma

The consequences of segregation by design are not only economic and physical but also deeply psychological. The forced displacement from urban renewal and gentrification causes what has been termed "root shock," a traumatic stress reaction to the loss of one's home, community, and social networks. This displacement leads to feelings of isolation, powerlessness, and a loss of identity and cultural connection. Studies have found that residents of gentrifying neighborhoods, particularly renters and those with low incomes, experience a higher likelihood of serious psychological distress.

This trauma is intergenerational. The historical and ongoing experience of having one's community erased or devalued instills a deep sense of distrust in government and other institutions. For many, the physical scars on the landscape—the highways that divide neighborhoods, the vacant lots where homes once stood—are a constant reminder of a history of exclusion and dispossession.

Designing a More Equitable Future

The story of urban planning and racial inequality is a sobering one, but it is not finished. Across the country, a new generation of planners, activists, and community leaders is working to dismantle the legacy of segregation and build more just and inclusive cities. This work is happening on multiple fronts, from policy reform to grassroots organizing.

Reforming the Tools of Exclusion

A key focus of this new movement is reforming the very zoning codes that were used to create segregation in the first place. Many cities are re-examining "exclusionary zoning" practices, such as laws that permit only single-family homes on large lots, which effectively price out lower-income families and perpetuate segregation.

Reforms include:

Ending Single-Family Zoning: Cities like Minneapolis and states like Oregon and California have enacted legislation to allow for more diverse housing types, such as duplexes and triplexes, in neighborhoods previously zoned exclusively for single-family homes.
Inclusionary Zoning (IZ): Hundreds of jurisdictions have adopted IZ policies, which require or encourage developers of new housing to set aside a certain percentage of units as affordable for low- or moderate-income households. When these units are integrated on-site, IZ can help create more economically and racially mixed communities.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs): Easing restrictions on the construction of ADUs (also known as backyard cottages or in-law units) can increase the supply of smaller, more affordable housing options within existing neighborhoods.

Community-Led Development and Reparative Planning

Beyond top-down policy changes, there is a growing movement for community-led development that empowers residents to shape the future of their own neighborhoods. Models like Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and Limited Equity Cooperatives (LECs) offer a powerful alternative to the speculative real estate market. In a CLT, a nonprofit organization acquires and holds land for the benefit of the community, leasing it for long-term, affordable homeownership or rental housing. This model removes land from the speculative market, ensuring permanent affordability and giving residents collective control over development. Case studies from Burlington, Vermont's Champlain Housing Trust to New York City's Cooper Square show how these models can successfully preserve affordability and prevent displacement even in rapidly gentrifying areas.

A new and vital conversation is also emerging around the concept of reparative planning and restorative justice. This framework acknowledges the historical and ongoing harms caused by racist planning practices and seeks to actively redress them. It moves beyond simply ending discriminatory practices to implementing policies that repair the damage done. This can include prioritizing investments in communities that have been historically divested from, creating pathways for Black families to build wealth, and ensuring that community members who have been harmed have a central role in planning their own futures. Urban planners like Justin Steil and Rashad Williams are developing theoretical frameworks for what this looks like in practice, arguing that true justice requires confronting the past to build a more equitable future.

Conclusion: A Deliberate Path Forward

The American city is a landscape of stark contrasts, a physical testament to a history of both aspiration and oppression. The racial inequality that we see etched into our neighborhoods is not a natural phenomenon; it is the result of a series of deliberate choices made over the course of a century. From racially restrictive covenants and redlining to the destructive force of urban renewal and highway construction, the tools of urban planning were consciously used to segregate communities, deny opportunity, and concentrate disadvantage.

The enduring legacy of this design is staggering. It is visible in the persistent racial wealth gap, the stark health disparities between neighborhoods, the unequal educational opportunities afforded to children, and the psychological trauma of displacement.

Yet, the future of our cities is not predetermined. Just as inequality was designed into the urban fabric, it can be redesigned out. A growing movement of planners, policymakers, and community advocates is working to create a new vision for the American city—one rooted in equity, inclusion, and justice. By reforming discriminatory zoning laws, empowering community-led development, and embracing a framework of reparative justice, it is possible to begin to heal the wounds of the past. Acknowledging that our cities were segregated by design is the first, essential step. Committing to a future of inclusion by design is the moral imperative that follows. It is a long and difficult road, but it is the only path toward building cities that are truly for everyone.