"Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among Americans: the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation's housing systems. Financially well-off Americans can afford comfortable, stable homes in desirable communities. Millions of other Americans cannot. And this divide deepens other inequalities....

Racism has been written into the United States' laws and entrenched in its institutions for much of its history. Native Americans weren't granted citizenship until 1924. Before the mid-1900s, students of color were pushed into segregated schools. And manystates maintained laws against interracial marriages until 1967. In the Race and American Law series, readers will look at how court cases and government actions have moved toward more equality...

"Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor offers a ... chronicle of the twilight of redlining and the introduction of conventional real estate practices into the Black urban market, uncovering a transition from racist exclusion to predatory inclusion. Widespread access to mortgages across the United States after World War II cemented homeownership as fundamental to conceptions of citizenship and belonging. African Americans had long faced racist obstacles to homeownership,...

"Inverting the conventional history of American suburbanization, Tim Keogh turns the spotlight from wealth and freedom to poverty and inequality. Focusing on the archetypal Long Island communities of the postwar era, Keogh shows that a key driver of suburban development and the segregation it embodied was not housing but employment. Inequality and injustice were baked into suburban development, but housing discrimination was a secondary expression...