Norfolk City Manager Chip Filer and Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority Executive Director Ronald Jackson argued in a March 28 Op-Ed that in spite of a history of redlining, segregation and structural racism, and in spite of NRHA’s long history of displacing Black families in the name of redevelopment, that this time things are going to be different — that this time the people of St. Paul’s will have true choices and their interests will be protected.
It’s good that they recognize the history of racial discrimination in Norfolk, but they significantly understate the ongoing impacts of structural racism. Today the census tracts that encompass St. Paul’s Quadrant are 90% Black. Just west, across St. Paul’s Boulevard, the census tracts surrounding downtown Norfolk are 70% white. On the east side of St. Paul’s Boulevard more than 70% of individuals live in poverty; west of St. Paul’s Boulevard the poverty rate is six times lower. Average life expectancy on the east side of the St. Paul’s Boulevard is almost 25 years less than just blocks to west.
When it comes to the St. Paul’s redevelopment project, we know how this movie ends because we’ve seen it before, in city after city, decade after decade, and at least twice in living memory here in Norfolk. St. Paul’s Quadrant is wedged east of downtown, north of Harbor Park and new casino site, and smack dab in the middle of extensive flooding and drainage projects. Profit interests are too strong, and protections for the city’s most vulnerable residents are far too weak. Widespread displacement will be the ultimate cost of this plan for St. Paul’s redevelopment.
What bothers me most is how the language of “choice” permeates the discussion. The city and NRHA argue that any current St. Paul’s resident can choose between returning to the newly redeveloped area and taking a housing voucher. But the choice isn’t between voucher now and redeveloped neighborhood now; it’s between voucher now and a promise of future return to a redeveloped neighborhood, a promise made by NRHA, which has a long track record of breaking precisely these kinds of promises. No wonder so many people are “choosing” to cut their losses and take a housing voucher.
The city and NRHA also argue that families taking housing vouchers can choose to move into higher opportunity neighborhoods. This is another false choice. Using NRHA’s own data, my analysis shows that vouchers are overwhelmingly used in high minority, high poverty and high social vulnerability neighborhoods. Across the city, two-thirds of vouchers are used in majority Black neighborhoods. More than 60% are used in neighborhoods with poverty rates that are higher than the city-wide average. Some 72% of all vouchers are used in the 40% most socially vulnerable neighborhoods in the city; only 6% of vouchers are being used in the 20% least socially vulnerable neighborhoods. Vouchers simply re-concentrate non-white and high poverty populations in other non-white, high poverty neighborhoods.
Perhaps the most intellectually dishonest “choice” on offer is that St. Paul’s residents could just make the choice of homeownership. But the U.S. government spent most of the 20th century blocking Black homeownership while subsidizing white wealth through suburban development. As a direct result, median Black family wealth is today only 10% of median white family wealth. And study after study show that non-white homebuyers continue to face discrimination, from higher mortgage interest rates to discriminatory practices of realtors. In a historically hot real estate market where it’s not uncommon for homes to receive multiple offers within days of coming on the market, it’s just bad faith to suggest that the residents of St. Paul’s — an area that was redlined, segregated and disinvested in for generations — can simply “choose” to purchase a new home elsewhere.
Framing St. Paul’s redevelopment in terms of choice — the choice to return to the redeveloped neighborhood, the choice to use a voucher to relocate to a better neighborhood, the choice to simply purchase a home — places the blame for not returning, for not finding a rental in a better neighborhood, or for not becoming a homeowner on the residents of St. Paul’s themselves. The city provided them choices, this logic goes, and this is what they chose. But there are no real choices here.
With this redevelopment plan the underlying structures of systemic racism that produce and maintain racialized poverty are unchanged. The only difference is that in a couple years, St. Paul’s Quadrant will be cleared of public housing and ready for private development.
John C. Finn is an associate professor of geography at Christopher Newport University in Newport News and assisted The Virginian-Pilot with data collection, mapping and analysis for its “Dividing Lines” series about segregation in Norfolk.
