Urban 'Renewal'- Not A Victimless Crime

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on how black people were robbed by "urban redevelopment". Property values were low in black neighborhoods, because you couldn't get a loan to buy property there. This would trigger "redevelopment", a process in which, in the Fillmore district of San Francisco, resulted in 5000 homes being destroyed, and over 800 businesses. Not reported in this article are the decades of vicious crime that killed hundreds, maimed thousands, and undoubtedly introduced tens of thousands to prostitution and drugs. Could there be a more effective way to destroy the family and breed crime?

In the years that followed, the "redevelopment agency" spent $50 million "redeveloping" the area, of which probably about $47 million went to white people. Multiply this example by every city over 100,000 in the US in 1950, and it's easy to see why the white people are in the executive suites and the black people are in prison.

Perhaps the most surprising fact reported here is that this sprang from a law passed in 1948, a time when there were no "blighted" neighborhoods. IOW, this was a land-grab from the git-go, perpetrated by the gangster city "governments" so ably described by Raymond Chandler, and bluntly aimed at the little guy and people of color. That's our history- learn it, or be doomed to repeat it.