I normally talk about urban policy issues with a data and history-heavy approach.
This month will be a bit different. I wholeheartedly support the housing policy changes the village board is considering. In fact, I fear they will not go far enough. But I am hopeful we will successfully deliver a meaningful amount of new housing in Oak Park.
When I explain why I support building more housing, the number one response I get is: “Stop calling us racist!”
First, I’ll be up front. I deeply believe that single-family zoning, the form of zoning we have here in most of Oak Park, was implemented for the purpose of keeping a large portion of Oak Park white. You might argue about the intentions, but in the single-family areas of Oak Park, that is also its present-day impact. Single-family homes are expensive and, because of racial disparities in income and wealth, these neighborhoods are far less accessible to minorities.
Try the block party test. If you live on a block with only single-family homes, how many nonwhite faces do you see at your block party? And it goes deeper than race. How many blue-collar workers do you see? How many retirees stayed instead of moving someplace cheaper after their kids left? How many young, single adults live on your block? Statistically, you are probably a white homeowner with kids, as are most of your neighbors.
That’s not diverse by any measure. And this was the intended outcome when single-family zoning was implemented more than a century ago.
You might argue that this is not your intention when you propose keeping the system just the way it is. You aren’t a racist. You like diversity. You don’t support segregation. I get it.
But we can see the impact of this system all around us. Whatever our personal intentions, preserving the system also preserves its consequences. Once we understand those consequences, each of us has to decide what responsibility we bear for changing them. Some will reject the evidence entirely because acknowledging that a system can perpetuate segregation without requiring racist intent begins a genuinely difficult journey.
When I first read The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, I was stunned to learn the role that I myself was playing in this unjust system. Like everyone else, I came here for the schools. I had no idea of the history and was dumbfounded to find that segregationist policies had survived a century of reform, even in this uber-progressive burb. Rothstein left me wondering what I could possibly do to address the historic inequities I was now contributing to.
Well, I’m doing that now, writing these words, passionately arguing and organizing for change to the best of my ability. I’m doing what I can.
I’m not interested in giving you a label. I’m asking you: knowing what this system has done and continues to do, what will you do? Who will you choose to be?
Josh is a passionate urbanist and entrepreneur who’s lived in Chicagoland for 30 years and has called Oak Park home for over a decade.