Housing dept staffers, advocates (oops did we repeat ourselves?) mistakenly call SJ a "segregated" city; online commenters set them right

At a recent meeting to discuss the city’s rules for locating affordable housing projects, staffers from the SJ Housing Department and local progressive non profits voiced a series of inaccurate, ahistorical, and misleading comments about the racial nature of San Jose’s residential landscape. Central to their narrative was the false assumption that SJ's current racial residential patterns derive exclusively from past government policies, and that neighborhoods that are predominantly one ethnic or racial group are, by extension, “segregated.” The meeting was covered by San Jose Spotlight here. Online commenters on Spotlight corrected many of the misconceptions promulgated by speakers at the event. A collation of misstatements and clarifications follows.

Key quotes from the Spotlight story:

“The challenge is how do we integrate these spaces, and not whether or not they should be integrated. We have a moral foundation and a common interest in these outcomes.”

“Housing in San Jose is racially segregated, and it’s not going to be easy figuring out how to integrate it.”

“The roots of San Jose’s segregation, like many cities across the U.S., lie in federal housing policy.” 

Clarification: These comments illustrate the rhetorical sleights of hand favored by progressive advocates: Taken together, they suggest: 1.) That San Jose is segregated. 2.) There is a broad government mandate to fix that segregation. 3.) There are no other perspectives on the issue worth considering.

All three are logically suspect. 

First, San Jose is not segregated in any commonly understood definition of “segregated.”  In fact, as a city, it is the most diverse big city in California.

“Segregated” means that a power entity, usually the government or extra-governmental forces, use laws, physical coercion, or intimidation to *actively separate* groups from one another.  Consider these definitions from Google re: what “segregate” means:

Set apart from the rest or from each other; isolate or divide
Eg: "apprehensions about groups segregated from the rest of society"

Separate or divide along racial, sexual, or religious lines
Eg: “black people were segregated in churches, schools, and colleges”

Note how there is always an active, intentional force in these definitions. A useful example is how the various U.S. government agencies over time used horrific, anti-free market Black Codes, Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and enforced race-based covenants to actively keep Blacks and other racial groups out of specifically identified neighborhoods.

What “segregation” doesn’t mean, however—and this is where advocates start cheating—is that racial and ethnic groups clustering in particular areas necessarily is a sign of segregation--the result of active, forced separation. This assumption does not withstand linguistic nor logical scrutiny. The presence of even a small percentage of minority group residents in, say, a predominantly white neighborhood means, in fact, that the neighborhood is *not* segregated in its commonly understood sense, as the groups are not forcibly separated. In fact, that neighborhood is integrated. Now it may not be integrated in a meaningful way. It may not be as integrated as much as I want or the housing advocates want. But it's a long way from segregated, and to suggest otherwise is race-baiting demagoguery.

{Notably, it's also a sly twisting of the “disparate impact” fallacy, which suggests that every difference in average outcome among racial or ethnic groups is a result of institutional discrimination.]

The Spotlight commenters get to the point:
 
Not Suckered JUL 26, 2021 AT 3:32PM
It’s asking too much to include the text of the explicit city, county, state, or federal law or laws to make the use of “segregated” in the headline’s context honest, isn’t it?

HB JUL 25, 2021 AT 5:23PM
I have no idea what your postings are about. 
We don’t have “racial” segregation, we have “economic” as well as self segregation. Some of the uneven distribution (of Asians for example) has a great deal to do with where they work. And, people tend to move into neighborhoods where the can find the food and culture that they prefer. There is absolutely no bar to anyone living anywhere they want — they do have to be able to pay asking price. So if you want the benefit of the next five or ten years of appreciation in Willow Glen — buy a house there like everyone else did. 
If you look at the chart in the article, blacks are fairly evenly distributed across all categories. Please show me one current legal bar to anyone purchasing a house anywhere they want.

wayne prescott JUL 26, 2021 AT 3:46PM
I agree with you, Not Him. Those who blame the White Man and His zoning laws for segregation overlook this fact of human nature: people tend to want to live and associate with people just like themselves. 
As for building lower priced housing, it can’t happen quickly enough to provide a measurable dent in the socio-economics of the Bay Area. Employment drives demand for housing, and demand drives up prices. Increasing housing supply is not a viable solution to the supply/demand imbalance. The most effective way to bring about greater home price affordability, and put a dent in our collective traffic congestion and air pollution problems, would be to enact laws that limit the number of employees that an employer can have in a given area. Even the most so-called Progressive electorate depend upon $$ from large employers to get elected, so that will never happen. As long as the sun shines in San Jose and the nights are cool and comfortable, no employer is going to locate in the Central Valley by choice. They will be driven their by economics, or with economic incentives. 
People need to be careful to avoid making economic inequality a racial and ethnic issue. Yes, Black Americans and Native Americans have surely been victims of discrimination, slavery, and genocide, and they deserve programs that enhance their opportunity. As far as I can see, all other people here in America (by their own choice or that of their ancestors) have had equal opportunity. Some families have made better decisions than others. Some young people are victims of low familial expectation. Some were just lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Some are victims of poverty because their ancestors have made such poor decisions, particularly with regard to education, that they are starting off at a low rung on the ladder. These people(without regard to their ethnicity), Black Americans. and Native Americans deserve strong economic and educational support to enable them, as a group, to come up to economic parity. 
Building low-income housing in economically advanced neighborhoods is not the most fair or feasible solution to solving “the segregation problem”. It would probably benefit a few chosen families, but is that fair?

Second, there is no broad government mandate nor authority to force residential integration. It is manifestly true that anti-free market government actions in the past—shamefully and inexcusably—did segregate neighborhoods in SJ and around the country. This racist abandonment of free market principles was and is inexcusable. But the current government’s duty is not to turn on the Wayback Machine to try to undo the injustices of previous governments and previous constituents. Their job is to create a fair, just, equitable system right now. To the extent that any de jure policies exist that explicitly segregate—demolish them. With prejudice. But to go beyond that into the realm of repairing past wrongs is a vast overreach, destined for ham-fisted, ineffective, and heavy-handed government intervention in housing—the same kind of intervention (from the opposite end) that created segregated housing originally.

The Spotlight commenters drive the point home:

Hummm….. JUL 25, 2021 AT 11:46AM
It seems strange that many housing advocacy nonprofits like SV@Home are making big bucks from these policies and appear intertwined with the City of San Jose Housing Department. 

Why not help more people (and neighborhoods) by focusing on improving schools in these depressed areas and increasing pay for low wage earners rather than providing for the few that might get subsidized housing in nicer neighborhoods?
Also, won’t this ultimately just be taking taxpayer money to permanently supply housing for low wage paying companies employees rather than the companies paying higher wages?

Third, there are lots of reasons which explain why racial and ethnic groups may cluster in particular neighborhoods that have nothing to do with forced separation. In fact, they may choose to live in proximity to relatives, to religious institutions, to jobs, to architecture, to markets, stores, restaurants, friends, schools, parks, sporting facilities, nightclubs, bars--the list could go on--in which people from their group like to congregate.   Scholars and housing experts have known this for decades, and the academic literature clearly acknowledges this phenomenom, especially among first-generation immigrants. Here, here, and here are some links to academic and media content around this issue.

Government policies absolutely created and enforced racial segregation in the past.  But those policies no longer exist—most of them have been illegal for more than half a century. So to suggest that mysterious "legacy impacts" of these long-dead policies are the cause of group clustering today is weak argumentation and flies in the face of academic opinion and common sense. To cherrypick the data to find a lack of integration in a small sample size when the macro picture suggests deep diversity is dishonest. To misinterpret individual agency as a sign of oppression is condescending. And to imply that it's the government's job to make sure your block has the right number of different racial and ethnic groups living on it is deeply troubling. —CJE

The Spotlight commenters explain:

not him JUL 25, 2021 AT 2:46PM
people prefer to live around their “population”, mostly minorities for rational and irrational reasons
seems like desegregating neighborhoods result in protests, usually referred to as gentrification.
What the city needs is not forced desegregation but cheaper units via massive build outs of market rate homes so all races can afford to own, that and a massive depopulation so demand for existing units drops.

Hummm….. JUL 25, 2021 AT 3:48PM
I am doubtful that housing could be built fast enough to achieve that goal and I’m not sure in general about a plan to flood the market with housing in an effort to depress home values (especially as the home is likely many peoples number one investment). Maybe better to focus on/address wage inequalities…..

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Photo taken by Bob n Renee.