Luring Blacks, Keeping Whites

A tale of two suburbs: signs of failure and success

For many communities, racial integration is a worthy but difficult goal, a challenge to the foresightedness and ingenuity of their civic leaders. Rather than waiting for the courts to prescribe remedies for segregation, more predominantly white communities are trying to take the initiative and integrate themselves--with varying success. Two current and contrasting examples: Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, where an advertising campaign to promote voluntary integration shows all the signs of failure, and the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, where urban specialists gathered earlier this month to study a promising local program.

The Valley: No Shortcuts

One of the few places in California's San Fernando Valley that was open to blacks during the postwar real estate boom is an area near Pacoima, which real estate people mockingly referred to as the "Joe Louis Homes." In the decades since, the population of the sprawling valley, which lies just over the Santa Monica mountains north of Los Angeles, has swelled to include 1.5 million residents --but only 2.3% are black.

Today the fortress mentality within the valley is beginning to ease, but for reasons having little to do with racial broadmindedness. First, rather than have their children bused under court order to schools in west Los Angeles, up to 45 minutes away, some white residents would prefer to have more blacks within the valley. Says Mrs. Bobbi Fiedler, who won election to the school board last spring on an antibusing platform: "Most of the people I know are more concerned about losing control of where their kids attend school than about who moves in."

Federal affirmative-action programs in the valley have also increased white tolerance for black newcomers. The programs obligate large companies--Rockwell, Bendix and Lockheed, among others --to hire more minorities, a difficult task given the scarcity of black residents north of the mountains.

To capitalize on changing white attitudes, the San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council decided last spring to invite blacks to shop for homes in the valley. Aided by grants from the Ford Foundation and local real estate people, the council launched a $92,000 publicity campaign, distributing glossy brochures in the wealthier Los Angeles subdivisions where black professionals tend to cluster. The brochures showed blacks playing tennis on valley courts and partying on the sundecks of $60,000 ranch homes. Black radio stations broadcast a jingle urging Los Angeles listeners to "Move on in, move on into the valley."

But the campaign failed. City blacks decided that the valley was a nice place to visit but they didn't want to live there: the council received barely 100 inquiries serious enough to pass on to real estate brokers, and of these only seven black families ended up buying in the valley. Said Allison Bedell, a black house hunter who decided against the valley: "Our friends told us that the valley is not a good environment for black teen-agers." Says Kenneth C. Kelly, a black engineer and longtime council member: "We are finding the blacks are more uptight than the [white] neighbors are."

Indeed, opposition to the council's valley program has come from an unexpected source: the Valley National Association of Colored People. Explains President Edward Kussman: "Buying a house in the valley is fine. But it is a oneway deal. Who is going to buy the man's house back in the city? There is no similar program encouraging whites to move back into the city. We favor a 'Don't Move, Improve' program. Otherwise, you are encouraging the cream of the black crop to move away from other places." Undaunted by the dismal results to date, the housing council is seeking funds for another ad campaign.

Oak Park: No Takeover

Chicago's black ghetto has been threatening for a decade to cross Austin Boulevard, the border the city shares with the tree-lined suburb of Oak Park (pop. 62,511). But by and large, the village's middle-class whites have not panicked or fled; they have stayed put and, for the most part, welcomed a small stream of new black neighbors. Last week Estelle Campbell, wife of a black minister who moved to the village in Something you work at. 1971, succinctly summed up Oak Park's integration strategy: "Blacks won't take over if the whites don't run."

The late radical community organizer Saul Alinsky defined residential integration as the interval between the arrival of the first black and the departure of the last white. For a time early in the 1970s, it seemed that Alinsky's definition would soon apply to Oak Park.

"It was scary," recalls Sue Cronin, a white housewife. "We had gangs of kids coming in from the black neighborhood of Austin, strong-armed purse snatchings, things like that." But Oak Park's leaders organized a series of successful counter-measures--aimed not at repulsing new black residents but at reassuring anxious whites. To discourage crime, a new street lighting system was installed, and 23 policemen were added to the local force --many of them assigned to the border area. To prevent real estate agents from spreading panic among homeowners, FOR SALE signs were banned. To demonstrate that property standards would be maintained, building inspections were increased. Recalls Sherlynn Reid, the village's acting director of community relations: "The community pulled together and people said, 'Hey, wait a minute, we're a pretty neat place no matter who lives here.' "

One of the most controversial of Oak Park's measures was--and still is--the Oak Park Housing Center, a nonprofit organization that induces house-hunting whites to settle in areas where there are blacks, and house-hunting blacks to settle evenly throughout the village. Says Chester McGuire, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: "There are some who still would say that there should not be any control or attempted management, that integration should just be a laissez-faire operation. But the market is currently stacked against that."

Oak Park does have some unusual advantages that have helped it maintain its character: it is an architectural showplace with 25 Frank Lloyd Wright [houses within five square miles; the U.S. : Parks Service has provided federal funds for restoration of a number of landmark buildings; the village is convenient for commuters, since it is just 20 minutes by rapid transit from Chicago's Loop.

The minority population has increased from less than 1% six years ago to 7% today, and housing values have not suffered: the average Oak Park home now sells for $48,000, up from $32,000 in 1971. Nevertheless, next year the village plans to offer to its homeowners insurance against declines in property values. Says Village Manager Jack Gruber: "Integration is not something you win at, it's something you work at."

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