Beryl Satter

Basically, this is a story of 1950s/1960s racial discrimination in housing and manipulation of both white and black property owners or buyers by lenders, real estate agents and speculators, in one neighborhood in Chicago. Interwoven in the discrimination story is a mini-biography of the author's father, Mark Satter, a Chicago attorney, who tried to help the black buyers being discriminated against.

The mortgage lenders, including the Federal Housing Administration, so-called "redlined" certain neighborhoods which were occupied by blacks or susceptible of such occupation. Redlining meant literally drawing red lines on a map and that mortgages were hard to come by inside those redlined areas. In the meantime, real estate agents sometimes spread panic in white areas by saying that the neighborhood was going to be overrun; sometimes known as 'blockbusting.' Notwithstanding the redlining, however, banks would make mortgage loans to the speculators.

The outcome of all this was that (1) panicking white owners sold out at low prices to speculators, some of whom were real estate agents or in cahoots with the agents, (2) black buyers purchased property from the speculators at much higher prices in these areas and the purchases were frequently based on contracts to buy as opposed to mortgages. Compared to mortgages, contracts to buy confer few legal rights on the debtor if he/she/they were to fall behind by the least bit on monthly payments and led to quick foreclosures. All-in-all, not a proud moment in American urban history.

Further information related to the book and the situations described in it is here.

This is a well written, not often told human story on a location specific basis, told in an unusual and interesting way.

An Atlantic Magazine video on the same subject.… (mais)