Reply to Why does the DC area have so many country clubs?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I saw a social media post that said if you see some wacky real estate situation racism is probably the reason.

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It might shock you to know there is more to life than racism. Blacks made up a very small percent of the population outside the South until the great migrations started in the 30s. Country clubs were mainly founded in the late 19th century into the 1920s, although a flurry of new clubs emerged in the post war years. Most country clubs were not founded because people were worried about blacks, who, in the first place, were so poor while simultaneously useful as servants for the clubs. If anything, they were more worried about the wrong white people. Immigrant heritage whites like Italians and Poles and worse, Catholics. But more than anything, they were founded as part of the inevitable suburbanization and embracing of a leisure based outdoors lifestyle made feasible by lower density suburbanization. Which is why even the discriminated Jews and Irish and other groups built their own clubs. [/quote]

Everything that you said about discrimination is true, but I think you may underestimate  the impact of racial segregation on the built environment.  This is why so many cities have black neighborhoods on the East site and white neighborhoods on the west, with highways or large parks or both dividing east from west.

Most people also don’t realize the huge role that the US federal government played in enforcing housing segregation in previously unsegregated ares prior to and during WWII.

If you’re interested in learning about this the entire history of Palo Alto California is an illustrative — and infuriating case study.

The long and meticulously researched book “The Color of Law” is an eye opening treatment of this entire history.   [/quote]

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