Originally published on Public Books.
Historian Rebecca Marchiel has written a book that broadens our understanding of housing justice, interracial coalitions, and the relationship between racism and government regulations.
In After Redlining: The Urban Reinvestment Movement in the Era of Financial Deregulation, Marchiel centers a historical moment when governments held high civic expectations of banks and when people still espoused progressive expectations of their government. This is the United States in the 1970s—home to both the last generation of Americans to grow up with family memories of the New Deal, and the first generation to look out on a future without Jim Crow.
With special thanks to Johns Hopkins University’s 21st Century Cities Initiative, I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Marchiel about After Redlining. We discussed the last half century of housing policy (and policy history) and what her research suggests regarding the possibility of achieving progressive outcomes through the politics of self-interest.