Exploring the connection between Ferguson and housing and other government policies.

Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute, October 2014, available here.

Policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments to create racially segregated metropolises are at the root of the events that occurred since August in Ferguson, Missouri, a new Economic Policy Institute report finds. In The Making of Ferguson: Public Policies at the Root of its Troubles, EPI Research Associate Richard Rothstein tracks the history of residential segregation in St. Louis and Ferguson. He shows how government actions such as racially explicit zoning, public housing segregation, and federal requirements for white-only suburbs systematically segregated African Americans, and laid the groundwork for Michael Brown’s death and the resulting protests and racial tension. The report notes that these policies were not unique to Ferguson and St. Louis, but national in application.