How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood

by P.E. Moskowitz

Neighborhood improvement associations, now considered benign bodies concerned with the beautification of neighborhoods, were most often established in Detroit and elsewhere to help keep black people out of rich white areas. Detroit real estate agents helped segregate the city too. As in other places, they followed the code of ethics specified by the National Association of Real Estate Boards, and until 1950 that code stated that realtors should “never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any industry whose presence will be clearly detrimental to real estate values.”