"Block-Busting"

In terms of geographical separation, Little Rock’s neighborhoods are more segregated today than they were seventy years ago. In the 1950s and 1960s, through slum clearance and urban renewal projects, the city tore up black areas of residence and relocated African Americans to the east and south of the city. At the same time, predominantly white suburbs sprawled to the north and west. This geographical segregation was aided by the practice of “block-busting” in which real estate agents sought to exercise illegal control over the housing market. Block-busting involved purposefully moving a black family into a centrally located white block of residence. Whites moved out, and estate agents sold those families more expensive properties out west. Blacks moved in to those vacant properties, paying over the odds for the limited housing stock available to them. I’m John Kirk, of the UALR History Department, and this has been an Arkansas Moment.