Housing Segregation in Suburban America since 1960
Presidential and Judicial Politics

This book examines national fair housing policy from 1960 through 2000.

Charles M. Lamb (Author)

9780521839440, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 January 2005

318 pages, 9 b/w illus. 9 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.1 cm, 0.541 kg

"Lamb brings to his study a thorough understanding of fair housing issues, which includes work with the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights in the mid-1970s, an impressive amount of primary research in presidential papers and congressional sources, and a thorough mastery of the secondary fair housing literature." -Timothy J. Crimmins, Georgia State University, H-NET

This book examines national fair housing policy from 1960 through 2000 in the context of the American presidency and the country's segregated suburban housing market. It argues that a principal reason for suburban housing segregation lies in Richard Nixon's 1971 fair housing policy, which directed Federal agencies not to place pressure on suburbs to accept low-income housing. After exploring the role played by Lyndon Johnson in the initiation and passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, Nixon's politics of suburban segregation is contrasted to the politics of suburban integration espoused by his HUD secretary, George Romney. Nixon's fair housing legacy is then traced through each presidential administration from Gerald Ford to Bill Clinton and detected in the decisions of Nixon's Federal Court appointees.

1. Separate worlds, separate lives
2. Lyndon Johnson and the Fair Housing Act
3. George Romney's blueprint for suburban integration
4. Richard Nixon, centralization, and the policymaking process
5. Suburban segregation from Gerald Ford to Bill Clinton
6. The Federal courts and suburban segregation
7. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Political leaders & leadership [JPHL], Politics & government [JP], Welfare & benefit systems [JKSB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], History of the Americas [HBJK], Regional studies [GTB]