Suburbia under siege: Low‐income housing and racial conflict in metropolitan Kansas City, 1970–1990

Abstract

This article examines racial conflicts over efforts to build low‐income government‐subsidized housing in Kansas City suburbs from 1970 to 1990. Drawing on public documents, housing reports and analyses, and local newspaper accounts, I examine how suburban residents have reacted to and organized against government attempts to construct housing for low‐income people outside the inner city. I argue that the mobilization of suburban Whites against low‐income housing has been due to the perceived threat state‐led integration efforts have posed to White privileged access to, and control over, suburban housing practices (i.e., single‐family homeownership, racially exclusive neighborhoods, etc.). An analysis of the racial conflicts and struggles over housing integration illustrates the social construction of White racial identity and the constructed identity of the suburban homeowner. In conclusion, I discuss how single‐family homeownership, a fundamental characteristic of American suburbs, imputes distinct social meaning to urban space and serves as a basis of political mobilization along racial lines.