March 4, 2024
Constance L. Royster and Philip Tegeler for the CTPost
The state deserves credit for the release of the Connecticut Housing & Segregation Study, which was made public in January. This deep dive into the state’s residential housing patterns reveals historic discrimination that has persisted to the present day and continues to shape our cities and towns. Connecticut, it finds, is among the most segregated states in the union.
At the same time, the response to the report shows we still have a long way to go toward closing our state’s opportunity gaps and achieving meaningful integration through genuine choices in housing.
Gov. Ned Lamont, when asked for his response to the segregation study, said he wondered how much of the findings were based on people’s personal choices. “Is it all about geography and where people live?” he said to reporter Jacqueline Rabe Thomas of Hearst Connecticut Media. “Or is it about self selection in schools? Is it self selection and how we live our lives or where we work?”
Here’s the answer to the question, which surely the governor must know: our highly segregated communities in Connecticut are the direct result of 20th century federal policies that financed whites-only suburbs, redlined Black neighborhoods, and built the transportation infrastructure that paved over integrated communities and hollowed out America’s downtowns. Building on this foundation, our state facilitated many decades of exclusionary zoning, allowing suburban communities and their school districts to accumulate wealth and exclude low- and moderate-income families.
Our “choices” today are built on that legacy of government-sponsored segregation, exclusion, and racist disinvestment of Black and brown communities — and most government policies today continue to perpetuate that separation.
While it’s good to ask questions about the data the survey has revealed, blanket statements such as the governor’s are often heard to excuse inaction and mask historic harms.
It’s true that a percentage of people will choose their homes based on where their friends and family live, but even in the context of historical segregation policies, studies over many decades have repeatedly shown that people of color, like their white counterparts, want to live in communities with high-performing schools and safe neighborhoods. They want to live where they and their loved ones have the best chance of success. The majority of segregation by race in America is a product of public policy, historic and contemporary, not individual decision-making.
In Hartford, for example, Open Communities Alliance and various partners have surveyed more than 600 families with government housing vouchers and found that about half of families want to move out of Hartford but can’t find housing they can afford. Notably, that means about half of those surveyed wanted to stay in Hartford.
According to polling last year from Embold Research on behalf of Growing Together Connecticut, 65 percent of respondents said they considered policies to create racially diverse communities to be worthwhile, and 66 percent said it was important to build more mixed-income communities. In sum, people in Connecticut believe that everyone should have the choice to live in the community that is best for their needs.
Today, that isn’t possible. Many suburbs shun new housing, particularly multifamily developments that could be affordable for many people who live in cities. Strict zoning codes bring exclusionary results, with the effect of segregating Connecticut by race and income levels.
The cities in Connecticut have plenty to offer, and suburbs can learn from them in terms of diversity, neighborhood life and local offerings. There are many reasons people would want to live in our cities. But they are also home to underfunded schools, tax bases that have disappeared with the loss of manufacturing jobs, and high crime that stems from lack of opportunities.
The result is that many of our least-advantaged residents live in a handful of under-resourced cities. Some city residents are committed to remaining in their long-time communities, and we need to ensure that that is a good option, especially for their children. For others, it’s not about whether they want to move, or whether they work hard enough. They’re held back by a lack of options.
It is fair to say, as the Hearst Connecticut Media editorial board recently did, that we don’t need another study to tell us Connecticut is segregated. We know it by virtue of living here and observing our surroundings. The question, as the recent editorial asked, is what we’re going to do about it.
But the housing and segregation study served two useful purposes. First, it is a definitive response to those few holdouts who doubt the extreme levels of segregation in Connecticut. Second, it puts the question of what to do about it once again at the top of our leaders’ minds. If, as the governor says, there are still questions about how Connecticut got where it is, let this study be a way of answering those questions.
As to what we do about it, we’re not without options. There are policies state government could undertake to begin to reverse our segregationist policies, and they start by taking a hard look at exclusionary zoning practices in so many of our communities. As that discussion proceeds, there are a host of policies offered by the Growing Together CT alliance this legislative session that could help take on immediate challenges.
But the first step is understanding the history. If Connecticut is going to move past its shameful history of segregation, which continues to this day, we must understand how we got here, accept that this is where we are, and commit to doing something about it.
Constance L. Royster is the principal of Laurel Associates LLC, and is a recognized fundraising, education, nonprofit, and organizational leader. Philip Tegeler is the executive director of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, a civil rights policy organization based in Washington, D.C. They are members of the governance board of the Connecticut-based nonprofit Open Communities Alliance.
