Cleveland’s Outer Neighborhoods Could Be the Key to the Future

Posted December 21, 2017

External Article: Cleveland Magazine

Assistant professor Todd Michney recently wrote an op-ed titled, “Cleveland’s Outer Neighborhoods Could Be the Key to the Future” for Cleveland Magazine. The article, which looks at the development of outer-city, historic black neighborhoods in Cleveland, can be found here.

Excerpt from the article:

The center-out process of development often seems to coincide with continued residential segregation. As early as the turn of the century, small numbers of black families moved to Cleveland’s urban periphery. But by the 1920s, African-Americans were targeted by a new real estate market that defined them as “detrimental” to property values. Their white would-be neighbors sought to exclude them through deed restrictions and covenants, until outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948. Black borrowers were denied bank loans on homes outside of established African-American settlements.

More on this topic can be found in Dr. Michney’s book, Surrogate Suburbs: Black Upward Mobility and Neighborhood Change in Cleveland, 1900 - 1980.