Public housing plays a huge role in racial segregation and inequality — but not in the way most people think, Pedro Nicolaci da Costa, Business Insider, Nov. 16, 2017, available here

The term "public housing" is generally associated with poor, disaffected US minorities — but it turns out its origins were very much white and middle class.

Explicitly racist housing policies at the federal, state, and local levels, first during the Great Depression and then after World War II, helped deepen and exacerbate a wealth gap between the races that has accelerated over the decades.

Those policies also led to a sharp rise in racial segregation across many US cities, according to Richard Rothstein, a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute who wrote "The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America."