Suburbia under siege

Low-income housing and racial conflict in metropolitan Kansas City, 1970-1990

Bibliographic Data

ID2155373
AuthorsKevin Fox Gotham (0000-0003-2571-0300, Tulane University, corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume18
Issue4
Pages449-483
Publication date1998-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Spectrum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0273-2173 • E-ISSN: 1521-0707
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02732173.1998.9982207
OpenAlexW2043373838
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited55

This article examines racial conflicts over efforts to build low‐income government‐subsidized housing in Kansas City suburbs from 1970 to 1990. Drawing on public documents, housing reports and analyses, and local newspaper accounts, I examine how suburban residents have reacted to and organized against government attempts to construct housing for low‐income people outside the inner city. I argue that the mobilization of suburban Whites against low‐income housing has been due to the perceived threat state‐led integration efforts have posed to White privileged access to, and control over, suburban housing practices (i.e., single‐family homeownership, racially exclusive neighborhoods, etc.). An analysis of the racial conflicts and struggles over housing integration illustrates the social construction of White racial identity and the constructed identity of the suburban homeowner. In conclusion, I discuss how single‐family homeownership, a fundamental characteristic of American suburbs, imputes distinct social meaning to urban space and serves as a basis of political mobilization along racial lines

Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Metropolitan area · Political science · Politics · Public housing · Sociology · Subsidized housing · Homelessness and Social Issues · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

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