African American Migration Patterns
New societies, new peoples, and new communities usually originate in acts of migration. Someone or ones decide to move from one place to another. They choose a new destination and sever their ties with their traditional community or society as they set out in search of new opportunities, new challenges, new lives, and new life worlds. Most societies in human history have a migration narrative in their stories of origin. All communities in American society trace their origins in the United States to one or more migration experiences. America, after all, is “a nation of immigrants.”
But until recently, people of African descent have not been counted as part of America’s migratory tradition. The transatlantic slave trade has created an enduring image of black men and women as transported commodities, and is usually considered the most defining element in the construction of the African Diaspora, but it is centuries of additional movements that have given shape to the nation we know today. This is the story that has not been told.
Migration has been central in the making of African-American history and culture and in the total American experience. The transatlantic slave trade was fundamental to the development of the colonial economy; and after the War of Independence, the domestic slave trade was the engine that enabled the expansion of the cotton economy not only within the United States but also, through trade, to the international scene. In the twentieth century, black migrations from the South were crucial to America’s urban industrial development. They transformed a southern, rural population into a national, urban one, and the black presence throughout the country has influenced American legal systems as well as social and cultural policies and practices.
Blighted Community
Sections of a city in which a majority of the structures are dilapidated, within these areas, houses that do not meet housing codes are rehabilitated or demolished and new buildings are constructed. Factors to be considered in determining if area is “blighted” include such diverse matters as irregularity of the plots, inadequacy of the streets, diversity of land ownership making assemblage of property difficult, incompatibility of existing mixture of residential and industrial property, overcrowding, incidence of crime, lack of sanitation, drain areas makes on municipal services, fire hazards, traffic congestion and pollution. The term “blighted area” encompasses areas in process of deterioration or threatened with it as well as one already rendered useless and may include vacant land and air rights.
Condemnation
The term is used to describe the formal act of the exercise of the power of eminent domain to transfer title to the property from its private owner to the government. The use of the word should not be confused with its sense of a declaration that property is uninhabitable due to defects. The latter usually does not deprive the owners of the title to the property condemned but requires them to rectify the offending situation or have the government do it for the owner at the latter’s expense.
Eminent Domain
The power of a governmental entity (federal, state, county or city government, school district, hospital district or other agencies) to take private real estate for public use, with or without permission of the owner. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides that “private property [may not] be taken for public use without just compensation.” The Fourteenth Amendment added the requirement of just compensation to state and local government takings. The usual process includes passage of a resolution by the acquiring agency to take the property (condemnation), including declaration of public need, followed by an appraisal, an offer, and then negotiation. If the owner is not satisfied, he/she may sue the governmental agency for a court’s determination of just compensation. The government, however, becomes owner while a trial is pending if the amount of the offer is deposited in a trust account. Public uses include schools, streets and highways, parks, airports, dams, reservoirs, redevelopment, public housing, hospitals and public buildings.
Gentrification
The rebuilding, renewing, and the rehabilitation of depressed areas of the inner city and the displacement of lower-income residents in a neighborhood by higher-income residents who seek to live near to the city center, trading off space and quiet for access to the goods and services of the city center. The process has been facilitated by those local authorities which have provided home improvement grants as part of an urban renewal program. They are repaid by an increased tax rate. The original inhabitants move out as leases terminate, houses are sold, or landlords harass their tenants into moving. There is often a change of tenure from renting to home ownership. The term “gentrification” is rather new; yet the concept is old. Throughout the history of urban civilization, cities have grown, stagnated, and then decayed. Often the cities’ residents or others have then rebuilt and revitalized the city. In the United States, by the end of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century major cities faced growing slums and blighted areas in older portions. The decline included neglect and abandonment of public and private buildings and growth of poverty of the remaining residents, often recent immigrants, minorities, and the elderly.
Neighborhood Displacement/Neighborhood Revitalization
The most dramatic evidence of neighborhood displacement occurs when real estate speculators begin acquiring rental properties in areas they believe will soon become attractive to middle- to upper-income households. Speculative activity leads to the rapid turnover of recently obtained properties. As speculators move into an area, the first to be affected are resident renters. Although actual renovation may not occur for several years, developers and speculators have no incentive to retain current tenants, even on an interim basis due to many reasons: current rents are too low even to cover operating and maintenance cost; the existence of housing code violations creates the possibility of legal actions; and it is easier to dispose of the property if it is vacant.
As neighborhood revitalization proceeds, owner-occupants are likely to be affected by two likely scenarios. Presented with seemingly good offers, owners may sell too eagerly and rapidly, thinking that the neighborhood is still in decline. By not realizing the true value of their property, these homeowners may find it difficult to purchase housing other than in areas similar to their old neighborhoods. Secondly, as the neighborhood becomes more attractive to middle- and upper-income household, the surge in property values will correspondingly drive up tax assessments. This may serve to drive out owner-occupants whose incomes cannot cover the increased costs. Low-income elderly homeowners are particularly susceptible to being forced out for this reason.
Urbanization
Urbanization is defined as the movement of people from rural to urban areas with population growth equating to urban migration. Urbanization occurs naturally from individual and corporate efforts to reduce time and expense in commuting and transportation while improving opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and transportation. Living in cities permits individuals and families to take advantage of the opportunities of proximity, diversity, and marketplace competition.
People move into cities to seek economic opportunities. In rural areas, often on small family farms, it is difficult to improve one’s standard of living beyond basic sustenance. Farm living is dependent on unpredictable environmental conditions, and in times of drought, flood or pestilence, survival becomes extremely problematic.
