The topic of housing inequity covers many different areas including history, real estate, government policy, and more. To begin to understand the topic and to help you focus your research on a manageable issue, you'll need to begin understanding the scope of the topic and basic facts about it. You gain that understanding by exploring background information.
The resources below will help begin to understand this broad topic and to decide what aspect of it you'd like to focus on.
The five documentary films and interview with author, Leah Rothstein, below will help you begin to understand the problem of systemic racism in housing and home ownership.
An interview with the author on October 7, 2023 that was sponsored by Point Reyes Books, Mainstreet Moms, and KWMR Radio.
This film by Giorgio Angelini explores the promise of postwar housing policies, the systematic oppression in America’s “Chocolate Cities” and the communities they have created. The film suggests that ultimately these communities have more in common than they might suspect. This film is from an MJC Library database. You may need to login.
This film by Mark Lopez examines the forgotten history of how our federal, state and local governments unconstitutionally segregated every major metropolitan area in America through law and policy.
The National Arts Club presents a conversation with Adam Paul Susaneck, founder of the "Segregation by Design" project. Susaneck reveals the extent to which the American city was methodically hollowed out based on race.
This film from REVOLT TV explores the structural racism that has prevented America's Black people from building the generational wealth proportionate to their economic contributions.
This film is part of the Netflix series, Explained. In this episode, Cory Booker and others discuss how slavery, housing discrimination and centuries of inequality have compounded to create a racial wealth gap.
Books are a great source to use to gain a foundational understanding of your topic. These books will provide you with a good background on the topic of housing discrimination.
Click the image of the book to access it.
Articles from our background information databases are also great places to begin delving into this topic. Here are some selected articles to get you started.
If you are away from campus, you will need to login to our databases just like you do for your student email and Canvas.
You can find a wealth of information on the Web. You just need to be selective and make sure you know who created the content, what their expertise is on the topic, and why they created it. To learn more about evaluating sources, check out our guide, Evaluate Your Sources.