the answer to literally all of this is racism. the suburbs are zoned like that to keep black people out. full stop.
single family homes on x large lot are the only thing allowed bc only a certain type of people, generally, can afford them. median black wealth is dramatically less than the median white wealth. this is bc black people were systemically excluded from recieving federal loans and discrimination was encouraged by the feds in the housing market up until the 1968 fair housing act. black people were barred from accumulating wealth through home equity during the generation where that grew the most for white people. that gap has never been adequately compensated. (and black and latino families are still overwhelmingly targeted with subprime mortgages aka what blew up the housing market in 2008 so this is still like…an active problem.)
so yes, now that explicit racial discrimination is illegal, they make rules about your lawn size and how many floors your house has to have. they definitely do not allow affordable apartment complexes. they do not allow businesses/mixed zoning bc that could attract outsiders to the community and/or lower property values. this is deliberate racial segregation, not incompetence.
let’s talk about cars. yes, cars and oil have very powerful lobbies, but cars are also another form of personal wealth. if a poor black person manages to get in through a section 8 housing voucher, they might not be there for long if they can’t get to work bc there’s no public transportation. infrastructure reliance on the car is another proxy for racial discrimination. the list goes on and on.
snowghoul
titsay
yousharknotpass
