It's entirely true and if you go back and read old meeting minutes they will constantly just say they're doing something just to get rid of the black neighborhood.

I'm sorry to inform you that Americans before 1960 were sometimes racist.

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...

Generally speaking other countries don't drive highways through the middle of cities nearly as much. It's still happening here - in Seattle and Bakersfield - maybe not for that reason, but still not for a good one, only because we've set a metric that cars need to go as fast as possible and when they don't the solution is more lanes.

Stripe cofounder here.

This is an issue that I know a lot of HN readers care about and I'd encourage anyone interested to get involved. (Feel free to reach out to CA YIMBY, your local representatives, or any of the other organizations doing good work in the field.)

Bad housing policy is one of the biggest impediments to overall economic growth[1] and to individual economic opportunity[2][3] in the US. Our current restrictive policies disproportionately hurt poorer, younger, and (frequently) non-white[4] people. I really hope we can change them.

[1] https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chang-tai.hsieh/research/gr...

[2] https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/83656/...

[3] From the Obama administration: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...

This makes even less sense than the original question.

The original poster posits a theory that generations of housing discrimination contributed to the enormous racial wealth gap. Another poster comes along and says "what about these immigrants who didn't face generations of housing discrimination?" And the conclusion of this is that the "single-variable approach" doesn't work.

It's too bad because the original point stands and in fact it's well documented in the literature. In fact an excellent book, The Color of Law [1], was recently published that shows very clearly in excruciating detail how racist policies systematically worked to deprive blacks of property and wealth.

But no, let's talk about the very different experience of the Cambodians and other minorities so we can continue to blame the blacks.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...

I just finished reading "Color of Law", which, while not the best formatted book, gives a really really good overview of the systematic, government led, programs designed and enforced explicitly against african americans from the late 1870s until the 1980s. It's a pretty quick read and well worth it for anyone who thinks that "systematic racism" isn't real.

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...

You can go back further, start around the 1930s, and see housing policies/practices that didn't just drive inequality, but also segregation[1]. I was shocked (pardon my ignorance).

1 - https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...