Apartheid. USA 1988

February 20, 1988

‘The 23 000 residents of the Starrett City housing complex, built 15 years ago on the site of the landfill on the outskirts of the East New York section of Brooklyn, have proved that a highly visible, viable, safe, well-kept and integrated large-scale development can encourage maximum minority participation in the community,’ wrote Robert C Rosenberg, President of the Grenadier Realty Corporation and general manager of the Starrett City housing complex on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times. He continued, ‘Few people thought it would be possible 15 years ago to maintain a stable population balance of 55 percent white and 45 percent minority in each of our 46 buildings. Our management undertook this enterprise, however, for four basic reasons: We believed that integration was required under both the US Constitution and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and that this was absolutely vital to the future stability of our urban areas. We also believed that providing an opportunity for minority children to grow up in an integrated setting would facilitate their entry into the mainstream of American life. Similarly, we believed that having

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white families live side by side with minority families is the best way to destroy the racial prejudices and stereotypes that have been eating away at the fabric of our society for much too long. And finally, we believed that the only way to build the political constituency needed to provide funding for government-assisted housing is to disprove the widely held perception that assisted housing will inevitably become segregated minority housing.

Mr Greenberg pointed out that there was a housing shortage of some 200 000 units in New York City and that Mayor Koch's ambitious 10-year housing plan projected only 66 000 new or substantially renovated dwelling units. He further wrote: As long as minorities have restricted housing opportunities, they will apply in disproportionate numbers to assisted housing developments and will, as a mathematical certainty, dominate a chronologically maintained waiting list. And as long as whites will not accept being a minority, invariably the result will be segregated housing unless race is considered in occupancy decisions. Some people for whom I have great respect disagree with our methods, because quotas have been historically used to restrict opportunity. There must be close supervision and controls to insure that quotas are not used to disguise attempts to limit minority participation. Most of our opposition, however, is generated by those who have no interest or commitment to integration, such as William Bradford Reynolds, Assistant Attorney-General in charge of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Judge Roger J Miner of the Court of Appeals asked Mr Reynolds that if Starrett City would likely become segregated without racial occupancy controls, how would a non-racial approach better foster the policies of the Fair Housing Act? Mr Reynolds replied, in effect, that the Government believes the market should decide the racial composition. There are good black housing complexes, he said, and good white housing complexes; there are good black schools and good white schools. The head of the civil rights division was actually arguing for the

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repeal of the Supreme Court decision that struck down legalized segregation.^222.

222. The New York Times, Op-Ed article by R C Rosenberg