Introduction
In 2014, the Saint Louis metropolitan area garnered national attention after the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black boy, at the hands of law enforcement in Ferguson, an inner ring suburb. News outlets jumped to cover the case given the acute reaction of Black residents in the neighborhood. As riots ensued for at least two weeks following the shooting, many political commentators referred to the neighborhood as a “warzone” (). Such violence came as a surprise to many. However, this sharp reaction should have been expected—or conceivable at the least. In actuality, Ferguson was not just about the killing of one unarmed Black boy. In fact, as Richard Rothstein, an American historian, pointed out, the rising was about “racially segregated neighborhoods with high poverty and unemployment, poor student achievement in overwhelmingly Black schools, oppressive policing, abandoned homes, amd community powerlessness” (2014, p. 1). In December 2014, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a columnist for the New York Times further escalated the conversation regarding the reality of Ferguson and the Saint Louis metro as a whole. Hannah-Jones stood firmly and said that “most black youth will not die at the hands of police;” however, “They share the same fate that was already Michael Brown’s.” (2014, para. 13-14). Nikole Hannah-Jones argues that due to the profound, reoccuring inequalities in Saint Louis, even if Michael Brown were not killed, his life outcomes were still likely to be poor, in comparison to his white counterparts in other parts of the city.
The United States was founded upon the idea of the American Dream—the belief that anyone, regardless of their background, can achieve success and prosperity through hard work and determination. However, for many, the American Dream is not reality. It is not as feasible as some may believe, especially for Black people in cities like Saint Louis where pervasive gaps in social mobility between Black and white people persist. This is in large part due to the city’s long, deep-rooted history of racism and de jure racialized policies that were meant to exclude and constrain Black people, especially 20th century policies such as redlining. Redlining policies segregated neighborhoods, turning Black neighborhoods into overcrowded slums with little to no access to resources or opportunity. Though de jure housing segregation was outlawed in the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the effects of such policies remain, as clearly exhibited through the state of Black communities in Saint Louis.
The neighborhood in which one lives has a direct impact on a person’s likelihood of upward mobility, as location determines accessibility to key resources, like education. The idea that education is the ultimate solution to gaps in socioeconomic status and mobility has been emphasized time again in American history, especially by politicians who have had great influence. On December 1, 2018, Education Week named the former President George H.W. Bush the “Education President” due to the fact that in his 1988 campaign, he focused heavily on issues surrounding education in the United States (Walsh, 2018, para. 1). However, as he focused on education, he continuously failed to address a number of disparities. In a speech to a classroom of middle school students in 1991, he said, “Education matters, and what you do today and what you don’t do could change your future” (C-Span, 1991, para. 3). While his statement is true, it fails to recognize more prominent issues within the nation’s education system. Sometimes, a student’s hard work is not enough. There are students that continuously work hard; however, due to their lack of access to adequate resources, they are limited in their overall success—specifically in access to higher education.
In the following examination, I argue that due to historically racialized policies that isolate Black communities, the socioeconomic disparities between Black and white people are too pervasive to tackle with simple solutions such as education; therefore, comprehensive legislation is necessary in order to begin to see true change in bridging such a gap.
Limitations
The goal of this study is to better understand the severity of socioeconomic gaps between Black and white people and each group’s ability to achieve upward mobility. Furthermore, I intend to address myths regarding how to lessen and reconcile disparities with a particular regard to education.
In this analysis, I will consider documented history regarding segregation within Saint Louis and discuss how it continues to manifest today. Then, I will use mathematical processes in order to demonstrate how severe socioeconomic gaps in Saint Louis are. I will also use past research in order to discuss why education cannot be an ultimate solution. I intend to expand on this existing research to conclude that more comprehensive, targeted policies are necessary in order to begin to see lasting change.
The following research is unique because it focuses on social mobility gaps between Black and white people in Saint Louis, a city that has recently been under a great deal of scrutiny for its treatment of Black people historically and in the present-day. The focus on Saint Louis shows how severe social mobility gaps are in some of the nation’s largest metropolises. Furthermore, this analysis calls on the public to begin to think about the problems that Black-Americans face in a different manner: the goal is to understand that simple solutions, like turning to education, will not work.
Literature review
Black people in Saint Louis have experienced and continue to experience exclusion, violence, and perpetual discrimination due to 300+ years of intentionally racialized policies that were never reconciled. From the city’s conception, the region boldly labeled Black people as second-class citizens. In fact, slaves were once sold on the steps of the city’s Old Courthouse, demonstrating how proud Saint Louis was to be part of a slave state. In that same courthouse, Dred Scott first sued for his freedom as part of the Dred Scott versus Sanford case, which eventually reached the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was not a person. He was property; therefore, he had no rights, including the right to sue.
When slavery was abolished, the city still ensured that Black communities were constrained. In fact, in 1916, the city legalized one of the most outright methods to redline. The city’s Realtors’ association, the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange, sponsored an organization to draft and submit a ballot initiative that prohibited Black people from moving into neighborhoods with 75% or more white residents (Cooperman, 2014, para. 8). White people were also prohibited from moving into neighborhoods where 75% of the residents were Black (Cooperman, 2014, para. 8). In addition to promoting blatant segregation, zoning decisions degraded Black neighborhoods in Saint Louis. Black people were permitted to live in few neighborhoods, making the areas overcrowded, especially as the Great Migration took place, and more Black people from the South began to travel north and settle. Such neighborhoods were made undesirable due to their surroundings. For instance, zoning decisions purposely placed polluting industries, liquor stores, nightclubs, and brothels in Black neighborhoods (Rothstein, 2014, p. 9). To further segregate races, the city established Saint Louis County to create a residential area specifically for white people to distance themselves from slums filled with Black people in the city (Rothstein, 2014, p. 9).
Saint Louis was not unique in its efforts to create Black ghettos. In American Apartheid, Douglas Massey and Nancy A. Denton talk about how this practice spread across the north in the 20th century due to industrialization and the Great Migration. The new wave of industrialization drew class (and racial) lines in the North. Industrialization called for more workers; therefore, factories established clusters of homes and tenements near these new districts in order to accommodate the new, growing workforce. White natives alone could not meet the new demand for laborers, so industrialization largely relied on predominantly Black migrant laborers. While Saint Louis had a Black population due to its history of slavery, white people in the area still “viewed this rising tide of black migration with increasing hostility and considerable alarm” (Massey and Denton, 1998, p. 29). Massey and Denton argue that the slum conditions of Black communities repelled middle-class white people , and “working-class whites, for their part, feared economic competition from the newcomers” (1998, p. 29). To address these concerns, policies reinforced segregated Black communities into ghettos that both fulfilled the growing need for labor and also eased the fears of white people.
In recent years, “white flight” has exacerbated segregation in Saint Louis. “White flight” occurs when white people flee an area in order to avoid an influx of Black people. Historian, Richard A. Rothstein, argues that while white flight has roots in racism, former redlining and zoning policies have also reinforced it (2014, p. 6). Saint Louis has always emphasized that Black people were less than white people through racialized policies, and as discussed, the city played a major role in creating Black slums. Because of Black slums, white people began to fear Black people even more, believing that Black people would begin to spread their slumlike characteristics (Rothstein, 2014, p. 6).
“White flight” is the primary issue that built Ferguson. Ferguson was once a predominantly white community; nonetheless, as Black people began to move in, white people began to move out of the neighborhood. The first Black person moved into Ferguson in 1968 (Cambria, 2014, para. 11). By 1980, the area was 14% Black; by 1990, 45%; by 2000, 52%; and by 2010; 67% Black and low-income (Rothstein, 2014, p. 3). According to research by Washington University in St. Louis’s Department of Economics, because Black people in Saint Louis have become associated with slums, wealthier white people tend to flee the area, making it more affordable for lower-income, Black people (Metz, 2016, p. 22). This system breeds a cycle in which Black communities are consistently devalued, recreating concentrations of poverty and causing resources to deplete.
Segregation has strong implications on communities, especially Black communities which tend to be disproportionately low-income compared to other areas. In Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress toward Racial Equality, Patrick Sharkey explains that “neighborhood environments, along with all of the advantages and disadvantages that go along with them, tend to be passed on from parents to children” (2013, p. 45). Because social policies intentionally place certain groups into areas of concentrated poverty that lack resources, they ultimately create a tangle of obstacles that the segregated group struggles to overcome (Sharkey, 2013, p. 49). According to Sharkey, “about half of black families have lived in the poorest quarter of neighborhoods over consecutive generations” (2013, p. 45). In this way, Sharkey demonstrates how difficult it may be for Black families to overcome barriers in place in social mobility, solely because of their location.
In 2018, one street, Delmar Boulevard, still harshly segregates St. Louis. Directly north of Delmar Boulevard, a 99% Black population resides with an average income of $22,000, an average home value of $78,000, and a baccalaureate attainment rate of only 5% (Purnell, et al., 2015, p. 29). Directly south of Delmar Boulevard, the neighborhood is 70% white with an average income of $47,000, an average home value of $310,000, and a baccalaureate attainment rate of 67% (Purnell, et al., 2015, p. 29). The neighborhood in which one lives directly impacts a person’s likelihood of upward mobility, as location determines accessibility to key resources, like education.
Local governments primarily fund schools. In fact, the national government only contributes about 8% of the funding for traditional public schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2017, para. 2). State and local governments fund the remaining balance. On the state level, funding varies. As of 2016, New York spends the most money per pupil at $20,000 while other states like Idaho and Utah spend about a third of that on students (Governing, 2016, para. 4). As such, funding primarily falls to local governments, which often use property taxes to collect revenue for schools.
Consequently, large disparities in funding exist between school districts or localities, thus, vast differences in resources. For reference, in the neighborhood directly north of Delmar Boulevard with an average home value of $78,000, revenue for public schools will be considerably less than in the neighborhood south of Delmar Boulevard with an average home value of $310,000.
With this in mind, education cannot be the sole solution to bridging gaps between Black students in Saint Louis and their white counterparts because disparities exist and further exacerbate them. Furthermore, research shows that even if students overcome the adversity and such challenges in their communities, a lack of resources in higher education and a lack of resources to build income and wealth post-undergraduate education continue to make bridging socioeconomic gaps difficult.
In For the Sake of All: A report on the health and well-being of African-Americans in St. Louis and why it matters for everyone, Jason Purnell, et. al., describes the implications of segregation ino Saint Louis. As mentioned prior, zoning policies purposely placed Black people in environments detrimental to their health by surrounding them with “amenities” such as liquor stores and nightclubs as opposed to grocery stores and community centers. On the surface level, such zoning decisions may seem inconsequential; however, Jason Purnell, et al., found that in 2015, Black neighborhoods still have the same layout. As a result, in northern parts of Saint Louis City and Saint Louis County, concentrations of Black neighborhoods with poor or no access to healthy foods reside (Purnell, et al., 2015, p. 33). Access to healthy foods refers to the ability to retrieve fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, Purnell, et al., points out achievement gaps between Black and white people within the Saint Louis area (2015, p. 40). Educational attainment strongly correlates with health outcomes. According to Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health, “at age 25, U.S. adults without a high school diploma can expect to die 9 years sooner than college graduates” (2015, para. 12). Purnell focuses on the health outcomes for Black people in the Saint Louis area and how location matters in this regard.
In this examination, I will continue to focus on Saint Louis due to its deep-rooted history with the mistreatment of Black people and the pervasive discrimination in housing policy. Prior research discusses the importance of location with regard to social mobility and how historic policies like redlining blatantly enable segregation. Saint Louis—a city with a complex history regarding race—has never been analyzed with a particular focus on socioeconomic mobility. The For the Sake of All report released in 2015 discusses the impact of segregation on the health and well-being of Black people in Saint Louis; however, there is no focus on just how pervasive socioeconomic gaps in Saint Louis are and how simple solutions will not fix such disparities. As such, Saint Louis is being used as a case study to understand the pervasiveness of socioeconomic gaps in metropolitan areas.
Methodology
In order to better understand the severity of socioeconomic gaps between Black and white people in Saint Louis, I will use Markov chains and Markov chain Monte Carlo in order to calculate the general probability of mobility in the Saint Louis area. The data used to generate the Markov chain and the Markov chain Monte Carlo in this study is from a variety of sources that have previously compiled statistics on social mobility. To be particular, a large amount of the data used to generate the transition matrices and vectors for these processes are from Pew Research Center and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Surveys. Both of these sources have statistics on social and demographic trends in the Saint Louis region and in the United States as a whole. I also use a research study titled, “Upward Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the United States” by Dr. Bhaskar Mazumder of the University of California at Berkeley. This source is designed for its audience to understand that “a consensus view has emerged suggesting that the United States exhibits much less intergenerational economic mobility than previously thought and appears to be less economically mobile than are many other industrialized countries” (Mazumder, 2012, p. 5). In short, all of these studies uncover whether or not children who are born into low-income families have the same opportunities to achieve economic success, in comparison to those who come from more advantaged backgrounds.
All of the data used regarding social mobility could only be estimated as far as 2016, but one can assume that the numbers going forward are not considerably different, given that numerals have not shifted much as shown below in Figure 1.