1. Creating Momentum for Transformative
Change: Addressing the Racialized
Structure of Opportunity
john a. powell
Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Moritz College of Law
TIDES Momentum Conference
September 7-9, 2009
San Francisco

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My Biography
o I grew up.

3. 3
My Parents
My parents were
sharecroppers in
the South.
They left the
South in search of
opportunity.

4. 4
Home
They moved north
seeking opportunity and
bought a house.
Today I would say they
bought into a declining
area or low opportunity
structure.

5. 5
My Old Neighborhood
The vacant grassy
plots are not parks.

6. Where are all the people?
Suburbs
Suburbs
Central Suburbs
City
This
fragmentation
depresses the
whole region. Suburbs

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What’s left behind?
Vacant lots and
abandoned houses

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Where I Grew Up
I grew up in a low opportunity structure in a declining opportunity
city.

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It is also known as Detroit.
Deconstructed
Opportunity Structures
and Neighborhoods

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Place and Life Outcomes
• We all live in opportunity
structures.
Health
• The opportunities available
Childcare Employment to all people are not the
same.
Housing
Effective
Participation
Education • Opportunity is racialized.
Transportation

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Some people ride the Others have to run up
“Up” escalator to reach the “Down” escalator
opportunity. to get there.

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Opportunity is Racialized
o Structures and policies are
not neutral. They unevenly
School
distribute benefits and Lower
Segregation &
burdens. Educational
Concentrated
Outcomes
Poverty
o Institutions can operate
jointly to produce
racialized outcomes.
o This institutional uneven
Racial and Increased
distribution & racial Economic Flight
marking has negative Neighborhood of Affluent
consequences for all of us. Segregation Families

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Isn’t this just an issue of poverty?
o No – even if it was, that would not be an adequate answer.
o For those living in high poverty neighborhoods, structural
factors can significantly inhibit life outcomes.
 Low income urban blacks are many times more likely to
live in structures where there is little opportunity.
 It is not much better for rural blacks or Latinos.

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Which community would you choose?

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A Tale of High and Low Opportunity Structures
Low Opportunity High Opportunity
• Less the 25% of students in • The year my step daughter
Detroit finish high school finished high school, 100% of the
students graduated and 100%
• More the 60% of the men will went to college
spend time in jail
• Most will not even drive by a jail
• There may soon be no bus
service in some areas • Free bus service
• It is difficult to attract jobs or • Relatively easy to attract capital
private capital
• Very safe; great parks
• Not safe; very few parks
• Easy to get fresh food
• Difficult to get fresh food

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I now live in a high opportunity structure.

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Opportunity Matters:
Neighborhoods & Access to Opportunity
o High poverty areas with poor
employment, underperforming
schools, distressed housing and
public health/safety risks
depress life outcomes
 A system of disadvantage
o People of color are far more
likely to live in opportunity
deprived neighborhoods and
communities

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A trip in the past or back to the future?
The real story of redlining starting with Philadelphia

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Changes since then….
o Systems have become more complex. Example: mortgage
finance went from a 2 to 3 party system
Pre-Depression: Two Party
Housing Market
Party Party
1 2 Seller
Homebuyer
(and/or)
Lending The Post-Depression FHA
Institution
Era: Three Party Mortgage
Market
Party Party Party
1 2 Lending
3 Government
Homebuyer Sponsored
Institution Institution
purchases,
insures or
underwrites
loan

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…to this!
Today:
The web of actors
and institutions
involved in the sub
prime lending and
mortgage
securitization
market
Created by Chris Peterson, University of Utah Law School

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From Redlining to
Reverse Redlining:
A historical view of
redlining zones in
Philadelphia and areas of
foreclosure in minority
communities.

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Columbus, OH: Non-White Population & Foreclosures

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Why is the growing
foreclosure problem
More than Just causing problem in
Foreclosures and a communities of color?
Few Bad -Lenders targeted
Borrowers: communities of color
with subprime loans
Understanding the
Credit Crisis Impact -Lack of loan
in Communities of information or
understanding for
Color consumers in many of
these communities
Why Were -Communities were
Subprime Loans historically starved of
Concentrated in credit
These -Mortgage securitization
Neighborhoods? and the growth of the
subprime industry
created incentives to
24
target new markets with
mortgages

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Who’s to blame?
************************************************************
The old inequality made the new inequality possible.
Photo source: (Madoff) AP

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Two Views
Atomistic Systemic
• The problem: bad apples • The problem: poisonous tree
Colorblindness as the goal. Fix the “soil”.

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The structures we live in are actually systems.
27
Systems Thinking:
The Newtonian Perspective:
A D
ABCDE C
B
Linear causation
E
Causation is reciprocal,
mutual, and cumulative.

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Consider the Broader Context
o We want to avoid negative feedback loops.
o A structural analysis is deeply relational and time bound.
 Example: the subprime crisis. “People got bad loans.”
 A surface view solution: “Stop giving people bad loans.”
 Contextualized view (SR analysis) solution: Fix the dual
credit market, stop spatial segregation/redlining, work
toward stable home-equity building, etc.

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What are the implications of opportunity isolation?
• Poor economic outcomes, lower educational
outcomes, degraded asset development
• Poor health conditions, higher exposure to and
Individual risk from crime
• Psychological distress, weak social and
professional networks
• High social costs, distressed and stressed
communities, fiscal challenges
Community • Weakened civic engagement and democratic
& Economy participation
• Underdeveloped human capital, poor labor
outlook, poor economic development prospects

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What are the costs of opportunity isolation?
o Individual/family costs
 Living in “concentrated disadvantage” reduces student IQ
by 4 points, roughly the equivalent to missing one year of
school (Sampson 2007)
o Societal cost
 Neighborhoods of concentrated poverty suppress property
values by nearly 400 billion nationwide (Galster et al.
2007)

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Remedying Opportunity Isolation
o Adopt strategies that open up access to levers of
opportunity for marginalized individuals, families, and
communities
 Invest in people, places, and linkages
 Bring opportunities to opportunity-deprived areas
 Connect people to existing opportunities throughout the
metropolitan region
 Targeted Universalism

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Rethinking Structural Arrangements
o Bringing people into
structures that formerly
excluded them may not be
enough
o Message is: individual is not
properly “negotiating” the
ladder when the ladder is too
narrow or long … and we’re
climbing alone
 Insensitive, perhaps hostile
structural arrangements
o We need to re-think
structures themselves

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Questions or Comments?
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