Creating the metropolis in black and white: Black suburbanization and the planning movement in cincinnati, 1900-1950

The Kerner Commission, in its 1968 report on urban riots, argued that the nation was being divided into two societies, “one largely Negro and poor, located in central cities; the other, predominantly white and affluent, located in the suburbs.�? The discriminatory policies of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which spawned the postwar, race-based suburbanization movement, is generally seen as the main culprit behind the creation of the metropolis in black and white. I The Federal Housing Act of 1934, scholars argue, brought home ownership within reach of millions of Americans by placing the credit of the federal government behind private lending to home buyers. However, the openly racist categories in the FHA’s “confidential�? city surveys and appraisers manuals channeled most of the loan monies toward whites and away from blacks. By routing loans away from older central city neighborhoods and toward white home buyers moving into the increasingly segregated suburban municipalities, the FHA and private lenders parented a race-based suburbanization movement that racially split the metropolis.2.