[Durham INC] Fwd: The US city where ‘desert palaces’ are sprouting as affordable homes dwindle | Housing | The Guardian

[Kevin Davis]

Interesting article, and paints the issue accurately in broad strokes.

I do think this part of the article needs some additional context: "Later
the city suffered from disinvestment as a result of suburbanization, white
flight and disastrous urban renewal policies. But the city retained a
strong Black middle class and, over the past few decades, developed a
reputation for progressivism and racial diversity."

Missing from the above is any discussion of deindustrialization, namely the
closure of Liggett & Myers and American Tobacco as major employers of white
and black Durhamites alike.  Manufacturing was a pathway to middle class
jobs for many Durhamites, including many black residents with only a high
school diploma.  An anecdote from my time writing Bull City Rising and
lecturing on urban change was that, inflation adjusted, a supervisor at a
tobacco factory could earn the inflation-adjusted (early 2010s) equivalent
of $42 an hour; a replacement job as an orderly on a hospital ward at DRH
or DUMC at the time would pay a sliver of that.

These jobs were "replaced" with computer or telephone assembly jobs in RTP
for the likes of IBM and Nortel, but many of these disappeared much more
quickly during globalization.

The closure of those factories also reshuffled race/ethnic lines in East
Durham as well. While largely black by the 2000s/2010s (with increasing
Hispanic population as well), there were substantial white working class
areas which saw significant change after the factories closed.

Small quibbles aside, excellent article.

Kevin

--
Kevin Davis
ksdavis at gmail.com
919-599-8194


On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 10:17 AM bonita green <nitab48 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
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> The US city where ‘desert palaces’ are sprouting as affordable homes
> dwindle | Housing | The Guardian
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> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/12/us-city-desert-palaces-durham-housing-crisis
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> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/12/us-city-desert-palaces-durham-housing-crisis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
> _______________________________________________
> INC Website: https://sites.google.com/view/durhaminc/
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