The Progressing Planning group has published the ‘dissertation diary’ of recent MSc Regional and Urban Planning alumnus Julia Okun. The piece discusses the cultural significance of homeownership in the US, and the structurally unequal chances to achieve it.
Through the case study of Washington DC, it states that housing policies created institutionalized paths to homeownership for generations of white Americans, while simultaneously erecting structural barriers to housing wealth for people of color. The legacies of this have real material effect today: the yawning racial wealth gap of our modern era is pronounced, growing, and inextricably linked to property.
Read Okun’s piece here.
Image taken by Julia Okun
