Strategies for Urban/Suburban Housing Integration

Maria Sieira

School of Architecture, Graduate Architecture and Urban Design

Richard Rothstein’s research has shown us that during World War II and immediately afterward, there were opportunities to build new integrated cities in the United States, as they doubled or even quadrupled in population when new, much-needed factory workers arrived. Instead, efforts by the Federal Housing Commission kept white families and African American families segregated. Specifically, the African American families were forced to remain in housing that was meant to be only temporary, while white families were given low-rate mortgages towards ownership in the suburbs.

Professor Sieira has been researching housing for over twenty years. For the last three years, she has been a frequent presenter in the interdisciplinary AMPS Conferences, that bring together knowledge bases in architecture, media, politics, and society, and through which Professor Sieira has been exploring both urban housing for their socio-political concerns and the mediated context of contemporary city life. This paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to the June 2020 London AMPS conference which was held remotely due to COVID. The video is an excerpt of the paper.

Visit the website for AMPS London 2020 conference, The City and Complexity – Life, Design and Commerce in the Built Environment: http://architecturemps.com/london-2020/