Chapter V · THE NEGRO HOUSING PROBLEM (continued 2)

Economic status.—Dr. C—— owns a house and lot in his former home, Albany, which he values at $14,000 and other property and stock holdings valued at $13,000.

Education.—Dr. C—— was graduated from the Brooklyn Grammar School, the Boys' High School of Brooklyn, and Cornell University, where he obtained his A.B. and M.D. degrees. Mrs. C—— is a graduate nurse. He is at present an associate surgeon and chief of the dispensary of a local hospital.

Community participation.—He has already assumed a position of leadership in the social activities of the community, is a trustee of the new Metropolitan Church, a thirty-second degree Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias, Chicago Medical Society, American Medical Association, Urban League, and a director of the Community Service, and also an instructor at the Chicago Hospital College.

Opinions on race relations.—He believes that the recent migration of Negroes has been an advantage in teaching Chicago Negroes the value of property ownership and co-operation. He thinks the scarcity of homes for Negroes can be relieved by allowing Negroes "as much freedom as the American dollar." Definite suggestions for improving conditions within the race he gives as follows:

1. Establishment of a permanent medium for understanding between the two races—a permanent commission to act in the adjustment of difficulties of any kind. This body should be composed of Negroes and whites.

2. Rigid enforcement of existing laws.

3. A systematic campaign under the direction of the commission among Negroes to teach them personal hygiene.

4. Negroes should join labor unions and refuse to serve as strike breakers.

5. When Negroes do act as strike breakers, the doctor thinks, race friction is created and labor is cheapened. Negroes can obtain a square deal from the unions only when they have joined them in sufficient numbers to demand justice by becoming an important factor in the unions. If they are not permitted in certain unions they should form groups of their own for collective bargaining.

A YOUNG LAWYER

Numbers of young Negro lawyers are establishing themselves in Chicago, and their influence already is being felt in the community. A good example of this group is Mr. J——, who, although only twenty-eight years old, has been actively practicing law six years. He was born in Kentucky and has lived in Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, New York, and Oklahoma.

Education.—He completed high school in Kansas, graduated from Oberlin College, and then went to Columbia University, New York, and received the degrees of Master of Arts and Bachelor of Laws. His wife completed the junior year in college in New York, studied art in New York City, and is skilled in china painting.

Home life.—Mr. and Mrs. J—— have one child of four years. They live in one of the 1,400 buildings owned by a real estate man of that district who "notoriously neglects his property." The struggle to establish himself during the first few years in Chicago was difficult. Now Mr. J—— has the confidence of a large number of people, and a clientèle which provides a comfortable income.

Community participation.—Mr. J—— is a trustee of the institutional A.M.E. Church, chairman of the United Political League, member of the Y.M.C.A., Knights of Pythias, a Greek-letter fraternity and the Urban League, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Friends of Negro Freedom.

Civic consciousness.—He thinks that if working Negroes and working white men can be led to regard one another as workingmen interested in the same cause the color question will be forgotten. He believes that prejudice is based on the economic system. With respect to housing he thinks a Negro should, as an American citizen, be free to purchase real estate wherever he is able to make a purchase; that as long as artificial barriers are set up there can be no successful solution of the color question; that a man's respect for the rights of others increases in proportion to his intelligence, and that the press can be a great source of evil or good in educating the people. He believes that there should be clubs and educational meetings to instruct some of the less refined classes of Negroes in conduct.

A MIGRANT PROFESSIONAL MAN

Mr. and Mrs. F—— lived in Jackson, Mississippi, until 1917, the year of the migration, when they moved to Chicago. He followed his clientèle and established an office on State Street near Thirty-first Street. Mr. F—— received his commercial and legal training at Jackson College and Walden University. Mrs. F—— is a graduate of Rust College and the University of Chicago.

Home life.—The F—— home evidences their economic independence. It contains ten rooms and bath and is kept in excellent condition. They own six houses in the South, from which they receive an income. Mr. F—— is the president of an insurance company incorporated in Illinois in 1918, which has a membership of 12,000. He has also organized a mercantile company, grocery and market on State Street, incorporated for $10,000, of which $7,000 has been paid.

They have two sons, nineteen and twelve years of age, and three adult nephews living with them. One nephew is a painter at the Stock Yards, another is a laborer, and the third a shipping-clerk.

Community participation.—They are members of the Baptist church and of the People's Movement, while Mr. F—— is a member of the Appomattox Club, an organization of leading Negro business and professional men. In addition to membership in three fraternal organizations, they are interested in and contribute to the support of the Urban League and United Charities.

Opinions on race relations.—Concerning housing, Mr. F—— feels that some corporation should build medium-sized cottages for workingmen. He thinks that the changes in labor conditions make it hard for Negroes to grasp immediately the northern industrial methods. Patience will help toward adjustment, he thinks.

He thinks that colored women receive better protection in Chicago than in the South. His experience in the courts leads him to believe that Negroes have a fairer chance here than in the South. Agitation by the press in his opinion can have no other effect than to make conditions worse.

B. PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF NEGRO HOUSING

The purpose of this section of the report is to describe by a selection of types the physical condition of houses occupied as residences by Negroes. This description includes the structure, age, repair, upkeep, and other factors directly affecting the appearance, sanitation, and comfort of dwellings available for Negro use.

In 1909 the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy included Negro housing in a series of general housing studies. This study was confined to the two largest areas of Negro residence, those on the South and West sides. Both of these were studied generally, and in each a selected area, of four blocks in one case and three blocks in the other, was studied intensively.

The South Side area included parts of the Second, Third, and Thirteenth wards between Fifteenth and Fifty-fifth streets, with State Street as the main thoroughfare. The four blocks bounded by Dearborn Street, Twenty-seventh Street, Armour Avenue, and Thirty-second Street were intensively studied. It was found that within these four blocks 94 per cent of the heads of families were Negroes. The buildings were one- and two-story, with a considerable amount of vacant space in the lots. Half the lots had less than 50 per cent of their space covered. The houses were for the most part intended for single families but had been converted into two-flat buildings. Rooms were poorly lighted and ventilated, the sanitation bad, and the alley and grounds about the houses covered with rubbish and refuse.

Comparisons with other districts studied showed the following: Of houses in a Polish district, 71 per cent were in good repair; in a Bohemian district, 57 per cent; Stock Yards district, 54 per cent; Jewish and South Chicago districts, 28 per cent; and in the Negro district, 26 per cent. A study made three years later by the School of Civics covering the same area showed a decrease of 16 per cent of buildings in good repair. Five buildings had been closed by the Department of Health as no longer fit for habitation. There were leaks in the roofs, sinks, and windows of five-sixths of the dwellings. In describing a typical house in this area, the report said:

There was no gutter and the roof leaked in two places, the sink drain in the basement leaked, keeping it continually damp, the opening of the chimney let the rain come down there, the windowpane in front rattled from lack of putty. The conditions in these houses are typical; almost every tenant tells of rain coming in through roof, chimney or windows, and cases of fallen plaster and windows without putty were too common to be noted. One aspect of the situation that should not be overlooked is the impossibility of putting these old houses in good condition. Leaks may be repaired, plaster may be replaced, windows may be made tight, and these things would certainly improve most of the houses, but when all were done it would not alter the fact that these are old houses, poorly built, through which the wind can blow at will.

TYPES OF NEGRO HOUSING

Lack of repairs to the houses in the "Black Belt" is accounted for by the fact that owners do not regard the buildings as worth repairing, and that tenants can always be found, even though it is necessary to reduce rents somewhat. This reduction is indeed notable. The School of Civics found that while in 1909 50 per cent of the houses examined on the South Side rented for as much as $16 a month, in 1917 only 13 per cent could command as high a rental as that; that in 1909 the prevailing rents were $15 and $16 as against $10 and $12 in 1917.

On the West Side the area studied generally was that bounded by Lake Street, Ashland, Austin, and Western avenues. Here the situation was little better. One-third of the families visited in the three selected blocks bounded by Fulton and Paulina streets, Carroll Avenue and Robey Street were Negroes. The remaining two-thirds represented sixteen nationalities. It was reported that the white residents could get advantages and improvements for their houses that a Negro could not. While 35 per cent of the houses were reported in good repair, 31 per cent were described as "absolutely dilapidated" and in a worse state of repair than those in any other districts studied except the Jewish district. The report said:

Broken-down doors, unsteady flooring, and general dilapidation were met by the investigators at every side. Windowpanes were out, doors hanging on single hinges or entirely fallen off, and roofs rotting and leaking. Colored tenants reported that they found it impossible to persuade their landlords either to make the necessary repairs or to release them from their contracts; and that it was so hard to find better places in which to live that they were forced either to make the repairs themselves, which they could rarely afford to do, or to endure the conditions as best they might. Several tenants ascribed cases of severe and prolonged illness to the unhealthful condition of the houses in which they were living.

That there was a continuing demand even for the shacks and shanties of the "Black Belt" is evidenced in a report made by the Urban League of Chicago in 1917 that only one out of every thirteen Negro applicants for houses to rent could be supplied. At the height of the demand applications for houses were coming in at the rate of 460 to 600 a day, and only ninety-nine were available for renting purposes. This was due, of course, to the growing stream of Negroes arriving daily from the South.

Covering the same area on the South Side as that studied by the School of Civics in 1917 a canvass was also made in 1917 by Caswell W. Crews, a student at the University of Chicago. He found that tenants had remained in these dwellings in some instances as long as twenty years after their unfitness had become evident, because the rent was low and they could find nowhere else to go. He mentioned the mass of migrants from the South who, because of their ignorance of conditions in Chicago as to what was desirable and what was to be had for a given sum, fell an easy prey to unscrupulous owners and agents. Mr. Crew's description said:

With the exception of two or three the houses are frame, and paint with them is a dim reminiscence. There is one rather modern seven-room flat building of stone front, the flats renting at $22.50 a month and offering the best in the way of accommodations to be found there. There is another makeshift flat building situated above a saloon and pool hall, consisting of six six-room flats, renting at $12 per month, but in a very poor condition of repair. Toilets and baths were found to be in no condition for use and the plumbing in such a state as to constantly menace health. Practically all of the houses have been so reconstructed as to serve as flats, accommodating two and sometimes three families. As a rule there are four, five, and sometimes six rooms in each flat, there being but five instances when there were more than six. It is often the case that of these rooms not all can be used because of dampness, leaking roofs, or defective toilets overhead.

The owners are in most instances scarcely better off than their tenants and can ill afford to make repairs. One house in the rear of another on Federal Street near Twenty-seventh had every door off its hinges, water covering the floor from a defective sink, and windowpanes out. A cleaning of the house had been attempted, and the cleaners had torn loose what paper yielded readily and proceeded to whitewash over the adhering portion which constituted the majority of the paper. There were four such rooms and for them the family paid $7 a month.

In 1920 a cursory examination by investigators from the Commission showed that the only change in the situation was further deterioration in the physical state of the dwellings.

The movement of the Negro population across State Street eastward into the area once occupied by wealthy whites began as early as 1910. Wabash Avenue was the first street into which they moved. Gradually they scattered farther east toward Lake Michigan. Following the migration from the South the Negro area east of State Street expanded to the lake and pushed southward. The houses which they found in the new territory, although from twenty to forty years old, were a vast improvement over those they had left west of State Street. These houses do not permit of any general classification, for some are very bad while others, though not new, are in a state of good repair, largely according to the care taken by previous occupants. Along with descriptions of Negro homes must be considered the tendency among those Negroes who were able to move away from the congested areas of Negro residence. Some of the best houses occupied by Negroes in 1920 were in districts until recently wholly white.

A rough classification of Negro housing according to types, ranging from the best, designated as "Type A," to the poorest, designated as "Type D," was made by the Commission on the basis of a block survey comprising 238 blocks, covering all the main areas of Negro residence, and data concerning 274 families, scattered through these 238 blocks, one or two to a block, whose histories and housing experiences were intensively studied by the Commission's investigators. Approximately 5 per cent of Chicago's Negro population live in "Type A" houses, 10 per cent in "Type B," 40 per cent in "Type C," and 45 per cent in the poorest, "Type D."

I. "TYPE A" HOUSES

Type A houses, with those of the other types, were not concentrated wholly in any one section but were found widely scattered; there were none, however, in the areas which in 1910 held practically the whole Negro population. Examples of Type A were found on South Park Avenue between Thirty-third and Thirty-fifth streets, where some Negroes had lived for six years; on Grand Boulevard between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-eighth streets, where a few had lived for three years; on Champlain, Evans, Vincennes, and Langley avenues, between Forty-third and Forty-seventh streets, where some Negroes had lived four and five years; and on Wabash Avenue between Fifty-first and Fifty-third streets. In Woodlawn there are a few of recent occupancy, one of which was built by its Negro owner.

Most of the Type A dwellings are of substantial construction, principally of brick and stone. Some are old family residences in formerly high-class neighborhoods, built to withstand the test of years. Consequently, although they have been subject to the usual deterioration, they still afford a fairly high standard of comfort and convenience. Some are large and exceptionally well equipped with luxurious fittings and adornments installed by former owners. Most of these houses were built and owned by people of wealth who abandoned them. Many of them have since passed through several stages of occupancy. Somewhat less permanent in their physical aspects perhaps are the Type A houses in Woodlawn. Many of the houses in this district are of frame structure, and they are not as commodious as those in the formerly fashionable white districts. But they provide a desirable measure of comfort, with less waste space and superfluous rooms.

Comforts and conveniences.—Type A dwellings are fitted with all the conveniences required by well-to-do whites. Some of them have more than the customary one bathroom, have electricity and gas, and are well heated by steam or hot-air furnaces. One example of Type A housing is a three-story, stone-front, ten-room house on South Park Avenue owned and occupied by a lawyer and his family. There is a garage, and the place is kept in good condition. A twelve-room house, also on South Park Avenue, owned and occupied by a physician and his family, has two bathrooms, steam heat, and electricity, and is in excellent repair. Another physician on the same street owns a three-story brown-stone house, with a garage. It contains ten rooms and two bathrooms, has steam heat and electric lights, and is in good condition. For this property he paid $35,000. A three-story brick house on Vernon Avenue is owned and occupied by a business man. In addition to other modern conveniences there are lavatories in four of the bedrooms. The house is in excellent condition. A nine-room house on Langley Avenue, in good repair, owned by another business man, has gas, furnace heat, and a bathroom.

The occupants.—Although these buildings are occupied by the wealthier Negroes, business or professional men, it often happens that others secure and occupy such houses. High wages during the war and immediately afterward permitted some Negroes who arrived in Chicago during the migration to live in the best class of housing available for Negroes. For example, an undertaker owns such a house on Langley Avenue, with seven rooms, with gas, a bathroom, electricity, and hot-water heat. This building is ornate and in excellent repair. A postal clerk who has been in Chicago since 1897 owns a seven-room house on Champlain Avenue south of Sixty-sixth Street, where he lives with his wife and child. In the block south of Forty-third Street on Prairie Avenue is a nine-room house occupied by an employee of the American Express Company. In order to help pay the rent, four lodgers are taken, who together pay $20 a week. The house, which includes a bathroom, is furnace-heated and lighted by electricity. A transfer man pays $65 a month rent for an eight-room house of this class on Bowen Avenue. He earns $35 a week, and two lodgers pay $50 a month. The house has bath, electricity, and furnace. A railroad porter, who has been a doctor's assistant and has lived in Chicago since 1886, owns a house on Rhodes Avenue near Sixty-sixth Street. It has seven rooms and is provided with a furnace, gas, bathroom, and electricity.

Neighborhood conditions.—Surroundings of Type A houses are generally far more pleasant than those in areas where the majority of Negroes live. The streets and alleys are usually clean, except where Type A houses are in neighborhoods surrounded by poorer houses. The premises are generally well kept. This is especially true where the occupants are owners. When space permits, there is a lawn or a garden that shows signs of pride and attention. One block was noted, however, where the residents reported that the street was watered twice a day until Negroes moved in, after which it received no such attention.

II. "TYPE B" HOUSES

Type B designates a class of houses which have not the size, durability, permanence, architectural embellishments, or general standard of comfort and convenience of those classed as Type A. They are usually flat buildings, whether originally intended for that purpose or not. Frequently dwellings are rearranged by landlords, when Negroes are given occupancy, to accommodate two or more families in place of the one for which they were built. Type B houses have less floor space, the average number of rooms is fewer, and they have, as a rule, fewer modern conveniences. Still, they are good houses and much superior to the habitations in which Negroes are most often found.

Occupants of Type B houses are frequently found to be clerical workers, postal clerks, railway mail clerks, small tradesmen, artisans, and better-paid workers in steel mills and Stock Yards.

HOMES OWNED BY NEGROES ON SOUTH PARK AVENUE Classified in text as "Type A."

AN ABANDONED RESIDENCE IN THE PRAIRIE AVENUE BLOCK WITH A FACTORY IN THE REAR

Most of the houses in the part of Woodlawn inhabited by Negroes are of Type B. Another district in which this type of house is found extends from Fortieth to Forty-seventh streets on Langley, Evans, Champlain, Vincennes, and St. Lawrence avenues. Although in this area a few dwellings are of Type A, the greater part of them fall under Type B. About 5 per cent of the dwellings occupied by Negroes on the West Side—for example, some of those on Oakley and Washington boulevards—might also be classed as Type B. Brick or stone dwellings predominate in the districts where this type is found. For example, the block survey made by the Commission covered twelve blocks in the Negro residence in Woodlawn on which there were 190 brick or stone and 119 frame houses. Practically all the Type B dwellings are one- and two-family houses, and the majority are two-family houses. The Commission's study shows that these dwellings are not overcrowded and house their families comfortably. Many of the occupants own their homes.

Comforts and conveniences.—Most of these houses have baths, electric lights, steam, hot-water or hot-air heating, and gas for cooking. Only a few are heated by stoves or lack electrical fixtures. They were found to be in good repair, well kept and clean. Special pride is taken by home owners of this class in keeping the property presentable and preventing rapid deterioration. Family histories reveal that most of the Woodlawn residents are long-time residents of Chicago.

Neighborhood conditions.—In the neighborhoods where Type B houses were found, no uniform standard of cleanliness was evident in streets and alleys or in adjoining properties. They were as frequently unkempt as tidy. Although the premises of Type B houses were generally kept neat, surrounding untidiness often detracted from their appearance. But a block containing a majority of this type usually had an appearance of being better kept, whether the surrounding property was occupied by whites or Negroes. In the Woodlawn area the surroundings of the houses were well cared for, and sanitary measures were commonly observed. In some blocks in the Langley Avenue neighborhood carelessness and neglect were evident. Vacant lots were no more littered with rubbish than in white areas of a similar grade.

III. "TYPE C" HOUSES

Type C houses are the most common in areas of Negro residence. In this classification are included about 50 per cent of the houses on the South Side east of State Street, most of those in the North Side area, about 60 per cent of those in the West Side area, practically all those in the Ogden Park area, and many dwellings in the little Lake Park district.

Heads of families occupying Type C houses were usually unskilled wage-earners, or in personal service. Their incomes were such that they could rarely afford more than $20 a month rent.

Types of houses.—Eleven blocks on the North Side were included in the Commission's block survey. In these blocks 146 of the buildings were of brick or stone, and 123 frame. Fifteen were single houses, four were double, and 167 housed three or more families, the largest proportion of such buildings in any district examined. There were also four rows of houses. They were in a fair state of repair. Four-room houses or flats predominated among the fourteen families whose histories were taken. In one instance seven persons were living in four rooms, in another nine persons were living in seven rooms, in another eleven persons were living in seven rooms. The dwellings were mainly one- and two-story buildings, with a few three- and six-flat buildings.

A large proportion of buildings housing three or more families was found also in Ogden Park. In eleven blocks there were 109 such buildings. There were also sixty-eight single and no double houses. The frame buildings numbered 189, and brick or stone forty-eight. Most of the houses were one- and two-story frame buildings. The majority were in good or fair repair, though one block showed gross neglect of repairs to exteriors, and practically all needed painting. Five-room dwellings predominated among the fifteen families whose histories were recorded. Overcrowding was frequent. In one instance eleven persons lived in five rooms; in another nine persons in five rooms.

In the part of the South Side area east of State Street and between Twenty-second and Thirty-first streets forty-two blocks were surveyed. Michigan, Indiana, and Prairie avenues have excellent dwellings, practically all of which are still occupied by whites. Until a few years ago these were fashionable residential streets, and the buildings are large, well built, and often ornate. Surrounding them, however, are hundreds of houses, old and difficult to keep in repair. In these forty-two blocks there were 767 buildings of which 163 were frame and 604 brick. About 37 per cent of these are of Type C.

The surroundings of these buildings appear in brief comments on some of these blocks, taken from investigator's notes, as follows:

Property has been allowed to run down.

Five vacant houses; yards full of rubbish; lodgers transient; families do not move.

Vacant lot dirty.

Two vacant lots; yards well kept.

Garbage piled up on vacant lot; Negroes moving in.

Roomers move often; one poolroom; empty church building.

Vacant lot used as dump; yards well kept.

Two vacant houses robbed of plumbing fixtures.

Yards poorly kept; whites moved out three years ago, except one family.

Vacant lot used as dump; one poolroom, two hotels; yards well kept; Negroes moving in.

Yards unkempt; mostly renters.

Formerly questionable houses for whites.

Mostly newcomers; property run down.

Yards well kept; boarding-houses.

People move in because they can't find anything better.

Between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth streets east of State Street seventy-eight blocks were surveyed. There were seventy-eight frame and 1,523 brick and stone buildings, 620 single houses, 559 double, 254 accommodating three or more families, and nine apartment houses. Of this group 51 per cent were of Type C. The property and general surroundings showed age and the beginning of rapid deterioration everywhere; in some cases there had been attempts to care for the premises and in some cases neglect was obvious. The streets, except Michigan Avenue and South Park Boulevard, showed much neglect, and the alleys generally were dirty. Many of these houses were occupied by their Negro owners. Negroes were found to occupy about 40 per cent of these Type C houses.

Conveniences.—In these two parts of the South Side area conveniences and ordinary sanitary facilities are often absent. Gas is the common form of lighting, and often it is not used. Family-history data revealed that there were about as many homes without as with bathrooms. In a large number of buildings families were obliged to use common toilets located in halls or back yards. The dwellings were out of repair in some respects in nearly every instance. Defects of this kind were often in the plumbing. Leaky toilets or water pipes were common complaints. Some toilets did not flush. Some sinks were leaky, as were some of the roofs. In some houses windows or doors were broken, loose, or sagging. Some houses were very dirty.

On the West Side a situation not essentially different was found among the Type C dwellings. Possibly baths were a little more frequent. Occasionally there was a furnace, though stove heat was most common. Gas was the usual means of lighting. The situation as to toilets was about the same, and the buildings, being chiefly old, were usually out of repair in some respect. The number of brick and frame dwellings was about equal. There were more double houses in proportion to the single ones, and none that had three or more families. Five-room dwellings were most numerous, and there was little indication of overcrowding.

Neighborhood conditions.—Only two blocks in the West Side area were rated as merely "fair," four in the North Side area were dirty, while only one in the Ogden Park area was not cleaned. In the North Side and Ogden Park areas distinct efforts were observed to keep yards clean. Premises showed signs of care and attention, though an occasional vacant lot showed use for dumping. Alleys in all three districts gave evidence of neglect. Some were badly littered with garbage and rubbish.

IV. "TYPE D" HOUSES

Type D housing is the least habitable of all. The houses were usually dilapidated, and in many cases extremely so. Most of the buildings are among the oldest in the city. They were occupied only by Negroes at the foot of the economic scale, many families living from hand to mouth, frequently in extreme poverty.

This class of houses predominates in those parts of the South Side area from Twelfth to Twenty-second Street along State Street and Wabash Avenue, and from Twelfth to Thirty-ninth streets and Wentworth Avenue. Many Negro dwellings in the North Side area and about 35 or 40 per cent of those in the West Side area were of Type D. Even in the area of the South Side between State Street and Lake Michigan many of the older frame and brick buildings fall into this classification. It is safe to say that 43 per cent of the housing for Negroes is of this type.

Most of these dwellings were frail, flimsy, tottering, unkempt, and some of them literally falling apart. Little repairing is done from year to year. Consequently their state grows progressively worse, and they are now even less habitable than when the surveys quoted at the beginning of this section were made. The surroundings in these localities were in a condition of extreme neglect, with little apparent effort to observe the laws of sanitation. Streets, alleys, and vacant lots contained garbage, rubbish, and litter of all kinds. It is difficult to enforce health regulations.

Although there has been protest by Negroes against the necessity of living in places so uncomfortable and unhealthful, improvement comes slowly. Contentment with such insanitary conditions is usually due to ignorance of better living. For the poorest buildings low rents are offered to encourage continued occupancy and to forestall requests for repairs. Prompt vacating of many of these houses usually follows when a family can secure better accommodations in a better neighborhood.[23]

V. NEIGHBORHOOD IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS

Among the more intelligent Negroes neighborhood organizations were found similar to those of white people. Dissatisfaction with local conditions, failure of authorities to sweep and sprinkle streets or to provide adequate street lighting, corner signs, and similar equipment usually prompt these efforts. Three or four such societies have been instituted by Negroes in Chicago. One example is the Middlesex Improvement Club, organized following the riots of 1919 in a neighborhood including three blocks on Dearborn Street near Fiftieth. Among other things it seeks to promote a friendly spirit among the people of both races in a neighborhood which was turbulent during the riots. It has extended some financial aid to its members when required. It is financed by Negro business men with some help from white business men of the locality.

Woodlawn has a community organization which reflects the friendly attitude between the races in that district. Both whites and Negroes are members, with a common community interest. This organization goes somewhat beyond the usual neighborhood improvement association in scope and purpose. While it embodies the usual purposes, it also seeks to induce full use by all the people of the district of all public and semi-public institutions that contribute to good citizenship. One of the notices sent out by the association urged attendance at night sessions of public schools. It briefly set forth the advantages for both young and older people, suggesting that their usefulness to the community might thus be enlarged, that they might be trained for profitable employment, and incidentally that young people could be kept off the streets and away from demoralizing places. Attention was drawn to the fact that "business men of the city are seeking young people, both colored and white, for positions as stenographers, clerks, and trades people." The notice closed thus:

We are desirous that you use your influence to maintain a spirit of friendliness and good will among all citizens, white and black, and especially among the school children, paying especial attention to the conduct of pupils to and from school. We earnestly seek your co-operation in these matters.

In the neighborhood of Fifty-sixth Street and Wabash Avenue is another of these neighborhood leagues; all the members are Negroes. Meetings take place periodically at the houses of members, and special attention is given to such matters as the condition of their premises, care of lawns, etc.

VI. EFFORTS OF SOCIAL AGENCIES

Social agencies likewise have given considerable attention to the instruction and encouragement of Negroes in better living. While this effort has been directed mainly to the newer arrivals from the South, it has also had an effect on many who have lived in the city for some time but have not yet adjusted themselves to city life and more rigid standards of sanitation and deportment.

One of these agencies is the Urban League. Among other activities it issued placards to be kept in sight in Negro homes, graphically contrasting good and bad habits of living. Pictures showed the front porch of a Negro family as it should and should not be used, with the pointed question, "Which?" underneath. Then followed a sort of pledge of conduct:

I realize that our soldiers have learned new habits of self-respect and cleanliness.

I desire to help bring about a new order of living in this community.

I will attend to the neatness of my personal appearance on the street or when sitting in front doorways.

I will refrain from wearing dust caps, bungalow aprons, house clothing, and bedroom shoes out of doors.

I will arrange my toilet within doors and not on the front porch.

I will insist upon the use of rear entrances for coal dealers, hucksters, etc.

I will refrain from loud talking and objectionable deportment on street cars and in public places.

I will do my best to prevent defacement of property either by children or adults.

The guidance and instruction given by the South Side Community Service, pastors of churches and Negro newspapers have stimulated the Negro population to efforts at improvement of their property. One newspaper, for example, conducted a column containing hints on cleanliness, sanitation, and deportment. It printed items concerning objectionable conditions at given addresses and warned offenders that they were being watched by the neighborhood organization, which might take action against them if they did not improve their conduct.

Another way in which Negroes have been led to understand that habits of orderliness and cleanliness are expected of them in Chicago has been through a "Clean-up Week" in the spring of each year, when concerted efforts are made to collect and dispose of tin cans and other rubbish on vacant lots and yards. A "Tin Can Contest" was conducted by the Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A., which offered prizes to the children collecting the greatest number of tin cans beyond 300. The 1,000 youngsters who participated in the Second Ward were divided into eight regiments. The eleven-year-old Negro girl who collected the greatest number of tin cans had a total of 6,840 to her credit. Next in order was Hyman Friedman, whose total was 5,347. More than 100,000 tin cans in all were obtained.

VII. EFFORTS OF INDIVIDUAL HOUSEHOLDERS

Individual householders, especially those owning their homes, were found to be trying to keep their premises presentable often in the face of discouraging odds. Throughout the family histories appear repeated protests by tenants at the failure of landlords to maintain a decent state of repairs and improvements.

None of the houses occupied by Negroes are of as high a standard, generally speaking, as those occupied by whites of a similar economic status.

Negroes rarely live in new houses. Virtually all live in neighborhoods where the housing is old. Negro houses, even of the best class, were built from twenty to forty years ago. Conditions in these old neighborhoods do not make for high standards of sanitation and cleanliness, nor the best habits of living generally; and Negroes labor under a handicap in striving to attain such standards.

Less attention is paid by public authorities to the condition of streets and alleys in such neighborhoods than in localities where the housing is of a higher grade. The streets are not cleaned and sprinkled as often and the alleys are more likely to be dirty, unpaved, and generally uncared for.

In most of the localities where Negroes live, buildings that have not already reached a state of great dilapidation are deteriorating rapidly because of the failure of owners to make repairs and improvements.

Escape from undesirable housing conditions is difficult for any Negroes, and for the vast majority it is practically impossible, particularly during a period of acute general housing shortage.

HOMES OCCUPIED AND IN PART OWNED BY NEGROES Classified in the text as "Type B."

C. NEGROES AND PROPERTY DEPRECIATION

No single factor has complicated the relations of Negroes and whites in Chicago more than the widespread feeling of white people that the presence of Negroes in a neighborhood is a cause of serious depreciation of property values. To the extent that people feel that their financial interests are affected, antagonisms are accentuated.

When a Negro family moves into a block in which all other families are white, the neighbors object. This objection may express itself in studied aloofness, in taunts, warnings, slurs, threats, or even the bombing of their homes.[24] White neighbors who can do so are likely to move away at the first opportunity. Assessors and appraisers in determining the value of the property take account of this general dislike of the presence or proximity of Negroes. It matters little what type of citizens the Negro family may represent, what their wealth or standing in the community is, or that their motive in moving into a predominant white neighborhood is to secure better living conditions—their appearance is a signal of depreciation. So it happens that when a Negro family moves into a block, most of the white neighbors show resentment toward both the Negro family and the owner or agent who rents or sells the property. Whites owning homes in the neighborhood become much exercised by fear of loss both of money and of neighborhood exclusiveness and desirability. The Negro suffers under the realization that, for reasons which he cannot control, he is considered undesirable and a menace to property values. Wherever Negroes have moved in Chicago this odium has attached to their presence. The belief that they destroy property values wherever they go is now commonly taken as a valid explanation of any unfriendliness toward the entire group. This feeling takes on the strength of a protective instinct among the whites.

So wide and menacing, indeed, has this feeling grown that the Commission deemed it necessary to make a thorough inquiry into its basis and to determine, if possible, to what degree the presence of Negroes is a factor in the depreciation of property values. Therefore it is essential to distinguish clearly between: (1) general factors in depreciation; and (2) presence of Negroes as an influence in these factors, and also as a direct factor.

What is meant by "depreciation"? Real estate men know it as "a loss in market value." Market value is "the price which a buyer who wishes to buy but is not forced to buy will pay to an owner who wishes to sell but is not forced to sell." Depreciation is reflected, not only in market values, but also in appraised or assessed valuations. Before purchasing property it is customary to take into account the surrounding conditions that affect its value, as well as its inherent value. Assessed valuations, fixed for taxing purposes by authorized public officials, fluctuate to some extent in harmony with appraised valuations. This analysis of the factors that tend to determine the value of real estate for one purpose or another gives a fairly dependable rule for finding whether it has risen or fallen in a given period. If property is thus shown to have decreased in value, it is said to have depreciated.

The value of real estate is determined largely by the human factors involved. This fact accounts for the striking differences in value of property, for example, on Sixteenth Street, on State Street, in the "Loop," on Chicago Avenue, and on Sheridan Road. Convenience, desirability, and other factors involving individuals who make up the public enter into the determination of realty values.

It is necessary to distinguish between land values and improved-property values. Usually buildings are erected that harmonize in cost with the value of the land on which they stand. But this harmonious relationship may not continue; developments in the neighborhood may increase materially the value of the land, while the value of the improvements decreases as time goes on. The values of the land and of the improvements do not necessarily rise and fall together, though improvements generally tend to add to the value of the land. Much, however, depends on the use to which the land is put, and even more on the use of adjacent land. That use may be such as seriously to impair the value of all the land within a given area or some particular tract in that area. Such impairment is a chief reason advanced for zoning, so that property values in various given districts may not be impaired through inharmonious uses, and that property values throughout a city may thus be stabilized.

It is also necessary to distinguish between "deterioration" and "depreciation." They are not interchangeable. Deterioration of improvements on land affects the value of the improvement, not necessarily the value of the land. The property as a whole may be depreciated by deterioration of improvements, but an increase in the land value might more than offset this loss. This would be accounted for by a possible change in the use of the land. For example, the buildings on the North Side in which Negroes now live are uniformly old and bad, yet the Negroes cannot buy them. The properties are in process of change from residence to industrial use, and the values placed upon them for the latter use are far beyond the financial capacity of the Negro residents.

I. GENERAL FACTORS IN DEPRECIATION OF RESIDENCE PROPERTY

Apart from any racial influence there are many causes of depreciation in property values, the responsibility for all of which has often been thoughtlessly placed upon Negroes. Throughout the city may be observed blocks, streets, and neighborhoods running a declining course in desirability for residence purposes, losing value, changing in character and, in short, depreciating, but in or near which no Negroes live. The following are important factors of depreciation not due to race:

Physical deterioration.—The natural wear of time and the elements is a constant factor. Few houses are built to withstand these inroads over a long course of years, even though they have the utmost care. Neglect and lack of repairs and improvements hasten this deterioration sometimes greatly. Character of occupancy is often a factor. Some occupants are highly destructive, particularly in rented houses. Their careless or inept use of a house often adds vastly to the wear and tear and hastens deterioration. Overcrowding has a like effect.

Change in the character of a neighborhood.—Depreciation in property values in large cities is due in marked degree to factors not purely physical. There is always a continuing yet varying fluctuation in the character of neighborhoods; a restless shifting of population and conditions due to growth which rarely has been orderly or scientific. The psychological factor of residential property values is such that they may change very rapidly with the advent into a homogeneous neighborhood of a few families of a different nationality or social status. Between Twelfth and Thirty-first streets in the South Side Negro residence area, once the most fashionable white residence section, property values based on residential uses slumped utterly, and then later began to increase because of industrial uses. Such a change is often due to an encroachment upon a residential district of commercial or industrial enterprises. Neighbors will move away rather than endure such disturbance of their peace and comfort. Their places may be taken by people less sensitive to such influences who may be drawn to the neighborhood by reduced rents resulting from the exodus of former residents. Then rapid deterioration usually sets in as the tone of the neighborhood falls. A like result follows a change from an exclusive residential district into one of rooming-and boarding-houses and large residences remodeled into flats.

The shifting of fashionable neighborhoods soon leads persons of means to abandon a high-grade residential section for some suburb or newer neighborhood which they think better suited to their social positions.

Use of buildings for immoral purposes.—Such use, though clandestine, eventually becomes known; and although the property yields high rents, it lowers the standing and value of the block or neighborhood and of adjacent areas. It not only deteriorates the buildings thus used, but also drives decent people from the locality; and the deserted houses either remain vacant or are taken by less desirable occupants. Depreciation inevitably results.

Public garages, theaters, and kindred nuisances.—People of a high-grade residential district do not wish to live too near a public garage, theater, bathing-beach, saloon, cabaret, dance hall, bowling-alley, or billiard room. If they are unable to keep such enterprises out of their neighborhood they will sell their property and find homes elsewhere.

Changes in transportation facilities.—These may depreciate property in two ways: (a) they may themselves introduce obnoxious dirt or noise-making features or bring in industries with such features; (b) new transportation facilities often open up more desirable localities to which people are drawn from the older localities. In both cases depreciation ensues.

Overbuilding.—Overbuilding is another and frequent cause of depreciation. Building booms are often followed by years of depression due to an oversupply of buildings.

II. DEPRECIATION ON THE SOUTH SIDE

The area from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Streets and State Street to the lake is now the center of the largest Negro residential area in the city, having approximately 20 per cent more Negroes than whites.

In the eighties and nineties this area was part of the most fashionable residential district in Chicago and included some of the city's most prominent families and business leaders. They lived in houses which they had built for their homes, and which were the first fine residences erected after the Chicago fire of 1871. Michigan, Prairie, and South Park avenues and Grand Boulevard were the most fashionable streets with the best houses.

The Negro population then lived immediately west, between Wentworth Avenue and State Street and north of Thirty-fifth Street.

The North Side and the North Shore had not yet developed as fashionable neighborhoods. Indeed, the most prominent residence on Lake Shore Drive and one of the earliest stood almost alone for many years before fashionable people settled around it.

As the North Side grew in fashionable favor the South Side began to lose its original exclusiveness, and its residences began to depreciate. These properties, while their original owners occupied them, were worth, many of them, from $30,000 to $100,000, including large grounds, elaborate interior decorations, and sometimes works of art. The usual range of the original costs of these houses was from $10,000 to $30,000. The change steadily continued, and these houses were rented and sold by the first owners at reduced prices to persons less prominent socially, until nearly all the original families had gone. A few refused to sell their houses and left them in charge of caretakers; and a very few still remain.

The gradual lowering of the market value of the property is pictured by prominent real estate men well acquainted with the neighborhood for many years:

It is a positive fact, an economic fact, that any time a poor class of people moves into a neighborhood formerly occupied by people who had an earning capacity greater than that of the people moving in, there is depreciation. That is true whether Italians move in, or Poles, Negroes, Greeks, etc. If the people moving into the neighborhood earn less and have less than the people formerly living in that neighborhood, there is depreciation.

Between 1900 and 1910 a few Negroes moved into Wabash Avenue. The houses were very old and built close together, with few single residences. Negroes did not progress farther eastward in any large numbers because the next street was Michigan Avenue, probably the most select of all the streets in the area. With the pressure of increasing numbers and ascending economic ability urging them out of the congested, uncomfortable, and unclean dwellings west of State Street, Negroes could and would pay higher rents than the class of white persons to which the oldest houses would next descend. In 1912, in the area east of State Street, practically all of the original residents had gone, and few Negroes had come in. Real estate men estimate that generally natural depreciation proceeds at the rate of 2 to 2½ per cent a year. When Negroes first came into the area the buildings were at least twenty years old, and many were much older, representing at the lowest figure a very substantial depreciation.

There was another important factor in the depreciation of the area. In 1912 the old vice district west of State Street and immediately northwest of this area was broken up. The inmates numbered approximately 2,000 and were by no means confined strictly within the recognized limits. They moved into the nearest good houses available where they could continue to ply their trade clandestinely. They could afford to pay high rents, and numbers of real estate owners profited greatly by dealing with them. As many of these houses stood, they again yielded rents almost as high as when they were new. Cabarets, saloons, and amusement places packed the side streets, and buffet flats opened up in the residence blocks. Raids and prosecution, night visits from men who did not live in the district, called attention to the changed character of the neighborhood, and property values sank lower. Pressure from prosecuting agencies, as well as the attraction of better houses in less conspicuous neighborhoods, urged the vice element southward. This southward trend is indicated in the maps, facing pages 342 and 346, showing the environment of the South Side Negro.

While property in this area could be bought cheaply it was also possible to obtain proportionately high rents by placing Negroes or prostitutes in houses not rented to either class before. Negroes were always charged higher rents than were the whites who immediately preceded them.

The Juvenile Protective Association in 1913 made a study called The Colored People of Chicago and published it in a small pamphlet. Concerning the disposition of real estate men to profit in this way, the reports say:

... the dealer offers to the owner of an apartment house which is no longer renting advantageously to white tenants cash payment for a year's lease on the property, thus guaranteeing the owner against loss, and then he fills the building with colored tenants. It is said, however, that the agent does not put out the white tenants unless he can get 10 per cent more from the colored people.

The fact that for like quarters Negroes pay much higher rents than any other group in the city was discussed by the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy in a special study of housing for Negroes in 1911-12. The report says:

The explanation for this condition of affairs among the colored people is comparatively simple; the results are far-reaching. The strong prejudice among the white people against having colored people living on white residence streets, colored children attending schools with white children, or entering into other semi-social relation with them, confines the opportunities for residence open to colored people of all positions in life to relatively small and well-defined areas. Consequently the demand for houses and apartments within these areas is strong and comparatively steady, and since the landlord is reasonably certain that the house or apartment can be filled at any time, as long as it is in any way tenantable, he takes advantage of his opportunities to raise rents and to postpone repairs.

It was during this period that buildings could be easily purchased by Negroes. One white real estate dealer whose interests are almost exclusively in the area under discussion has purchased more than 1,000 such houses which he rents to Negroes. These buildings were not purchased from Negroes but from first, second, and third owners, and at a price much below the original value.

With an opportunity for renting or purchasing the houses in this area, Negroes began to move in, first in small numbers and soon in larger numbers. They naturally sought to abandon the generally and often extremely dilapidated houses west of State Street.

III. DEPRECIATION AFTER THE COMING OF NEGROES

Buildings twenty to thirty years old deteriorate rapidly unless expensive repairs are made. As Negroes were often unable to make such repairs while paying for the property, the depreciation continued.

Widespread buying of property in this district by Negroes began during the period of the migration. Many home-owning Negroes, having sold their property in the South and brought the money to Chicago, found it easier to buy a house here on a first payment of $200 to $500, and on monthly instalments thereafter, than to pay the rents demanded. Few, however, knew anything of city property values; they were often exploited by agents or assumed larger obligations than they could easily handle.

Many Negroes purchased fairly substantial dwellings on the long-time instalment plan without providing for repairs and maintenance. Usually the monthly payment to cover interest, taxes, and instalment on principal was about all the Negro and his family could carry, even though his wife's wages supplemented his. Thus nothing was left for upkeep.

Real estate agents before the Commission agreed that Negroes meet these obligations with reasonable regularity. One white real-estate broker said: "Those of us who have dealings with Negroes find that they make very fair clients on the whole, pay their way, and ask no favors that any other human being would not ask."

Another referred to Negroes as "wonderful instalment buyers" who have a "tendency to invest in a home earlier than whites," and said that in fifteen years' experience his firm had never foreclosed on a Negro home buyer; and in only two cases, due to exceptional circumstances, had contracts been forfeited. Two Negro real estate dealers said:

A colored man usually feels that he will go without food rather than not meet his obligations. That is one reason why sometimes his home is run down, because he has spent every dollar he can get to meet the payments on that property. He cannot spare the money sometimes to buy a lawn mower or sprinkling hose.

A colored man who buys a piece of property in a neighborhood has no financial connections. He meets his obligations promptly for three reasons: first, he wants a home; second, he knows they may squeeze him; third, that mortgage is coming due and he doesn't know where to go to get it renewed. We have no organization of our own to back him. If the fence is to be fixed or the house is to be painted, and a year from that date the mortgage is due, and he has $500 in the bank, he will not paint his house for the simple reason that, if he did, when the mortgage is due he will not be able to meet it. He saves, and when the mortgage comes due he has $500, $600, or $700 set aside to meet it.

Frequently Negroes overreach themselves in purchasing property. Charles Duke, a Negro, in a pamphlet on Negro housing in Chicago remarked:

A very harmful result of present tendencies is manifested in the acquisition of homes by colored people beyond their social or economic advancement. The economic waste in this particular has been especially great. They represent in many cases a considerable outlay of capital. The domestic facilities they afford are years beyond the needs of the people to whom they are allotted. In many instances it costs a small fortune annually to maintain one of these establishments, and when this is not done the depreciation is both rapid and spectacular.

There is such lack of hotels and lodging-houses for Negroes, especially for single men, that many Negroes have bought or rented houses with the intention of paying for them, in part at least, with income from lodgers or boarders. Such use leads to overcrowding, with consequent rapid deterioration and depreciation. This tendency is accentuated by the fact that the houses that Negroes can buy are usually old and deteriorated.

While new arrivals from the South soon learn that the poorest city tenement requires better care than plantation cabins, their carelessness meanwhile contributes to the property depreciation of their dwellings and neighborhood.

There are other factors of depreciation in this district which became active after the Negroes came, but for which they were not wholly responsible. One was the remodeling of residences for business purposes. While the remodeled property may bring larger returns, neighboring residence property declines in value. Many fine old dwellings on Michigan Avenue and Grand Boulevard have been transformed in recent years into lamp-shade factories, second-hand fur shops, and small business houses; and these changes have depreciated neighboring property for residence purposes.

Another factor of depreciation is the city's tolerance of gambling and immorality in and near areas of Negro residence. In most cities where Negroes are numerous a like tendency appears. Little consideration is given to the desire of Negroes to live in untainted districts, and they have not been able to make effective protest.

In 1916 the Chicago Daily News, in a series of articles on the Negroes, described some of the disorderly saloons and cabarets in the South State and Thirty-fifth streets region, with their vile associations of disreputable whites and blacks:

Other resorts in the district are worse; some are better. These are typical of the roistering saloons, a kind which would not be tolerated in any other part of the city since the old Twenty-second Street levee was broken up. White proprietors have brought them into the district, and many of them are patronized largely by crowds from other parts of the city. The resorts are forced on the colored people. Those colored families in good circumstances and desiring respectable surroundings move away, only to find disorderly saloons trailing after them.

At 301 East Thirty-seventh Street, on the southeast corner of Forest Avenue, is the saloon of C——. With this exception the district is a quiet, respectable residence quarter. When it was known that this property was to be used for saloon purposes a petition of protest was signed by 300 representative colored men and presented to Mayor Harrison.

At night this saloon is an animated place. Reputable colored families object to it chiefly on account of the numbers of disorderly white women who meet colored men in its diminutive back room. In the barroom an automatic piano thumps through the night until closing hours. On the mirrors are pasted chromos of "September Morn" and other poses of nude women.

Buffet flats and disorderly hotels are adjuncts of the bad saloons. They make a better harvest for the police than the saloons. The borderland of a colored residential district is the haven for disorderly resorts. Protests of colored residents against the painted women in their neighborhood, the midnight honking of automobiles, the loud profanity and vulgarity are usually ignored by the police.

In one block between South State and South Dearborn streets which was canvassed by the Daily News, five places were found openly admitted to be disorderly houses. Some were in flat buildings, the other tenants of which apparently were respectable, some raising families of children.

Many white owners of real estate who speak in horrified whispers of vice dangers view such dangers with complacency when these are thrust among colored families. Two years ago a woman of the underworld and her gambler husband decided to open a "high-class" resort on the South Side. She got a location as a neighbor of reputable colored people by purchasing the home of a former alderman and leader in a church, the one of which the Rev. John P. Brushingham, secretary of Mayor Thompson's Morals Commission, is the pastor. The woman was one of the most notorious of the demimonde. An oil painting of her, as she was before her husband in a fit of jealousy bit off a part of her nose, for years hung in a saloon of international reputation.

These are some of the influences which the colored population is forced to combat in its fight for decency and good citizenship. A few secure political preferment and others profit by catering to the city's vices, while the rank and file are hedged around by demoralizing influences and the race is discredited unjustly.

HOMES OCCUPIED BY NEGROES ON FOREST AVENUE (Note pavement and smoke.) Classified in text as "Type C."

REAR VIEW OF HOUSES OCCUPIED BY NEGROES ON FEDERAL STREET Classified in text as "Type D."

Another chapter of this series dealt with gambling in the South Side district. Here are two excerpts:

Colored men are in active control of the gambling situation in the big part of their district in the second ward. Back of them are white police officials at one end of the line and white politicians who keep them in power at the other end of the line. When second ward, and even some adjacent ward, gambling is discussed by gamblers on the inside, certain colored men are always mentioned. They are called "the syndicate," and their approval is said to be necessary if the police are to let anybody run in the ward.

Whether gambling is a more dangerous cause of demoralization of a community than are disorderly saloons, buffet flats and dissolute women is an often discussed question. Gambling is a man's game, is more open, and the connection between it, the police, and politics easier to trace. In order to gamble the police must be evaded, which is difficult, or made blind by a peculiar remedy for itching palms or by orders from political powers that be. However, it usually is the same police and the same politicians who are protecting both classes of vice.

The contamination of these influences depreciates property and casts a blight upon all who live within their unrestricted range. The taint extends beyond the blocks in which they exist and serves to promote prejudice and ill feeling against the Negroes who are the unwilling sufferers from these vicious resorts.

There are many landlords who exact high rentals from Negroes for the use of run-down houses. All investigations of Negro housing on the South Side indicated that as a rule the rents are excessive, considering the inferior dwellings, their disrepair, and unsanitary conditions. This neglect by the landlords not only directly depreciates the property but encourages a careless use of it by tenants that leads to the same end. One can hardly expect tenants to respect property that is not respected by its owners.

Owners and agents of property occupied by Negroes differ in their opinions of Negroes as tenants and in their ways of handling them. Of course there are differences in character, standing, and responsibility among Negroes as among whites, and this fact partly explains the following differences of opinion expressed by experienced real estate men:

One real estate firm, on Indiana Avenue, that makes leases to both white and Negro clients, said that property occupied by Negroes was more likely to run down. Another firm on East Fifty-first Street reported that it rented to Negroes on regular leases and had no trouble about collections. A young Negro real estate agent on Indiana Avenue said that he had no difficulty with collections: about half of his tenants came to the office, and collectors called upon the other half. When a building supports a janitor, he said, there is no trouble about repairs, but if the responsibility is upon the tenants it is difficult to keep a building in repair. The office manager for a firm on Cottage Grove Avenue said that the majority of its Negro tenants are on leases; all pay the rent at the office; if they fall in arrears collectors are sent.

A firm which for many years has conducted a real estate business on the South Side reported that 75 per cent of its Negro tenants are on a month-to-month basis with thirty days' notice to terminate; and 95 per cent of them are north of Thirty ninth Street. A firm on Indiana Avenue requires its tenants to sign leases; and in districts where there is much shifting about, or where the property is for sale, a sixty days' notice clause is inserted. It usually sends a collector, so that proper supervision may be kept of the property. Its head expressed the opinion that Negroes are just as good tenants as whites whose wages are on about the same scale.

The office manager of an owner with about 1,400 Negro tenants said that on the whole they compared very favorably with the white tenants who preceded them; while some Negroes are careless and ignorant, they all paid their rent promptly; his office did not average one eviction a month, and when Negroes are evicted they rarely cause trouble. Quite the contrary was the report of the office manager of a real estate firm on East Thirty-first Street, which does an extensive business with Negroes. Much depreciation, he said, can be attributed to Negro tenants; they are much harder on houses than white tenants of the same station in life; they do not take proper care of the furnaces or plumbing, and the higher rents paid by them merely cover the cost of the additional repairs; the recent comers pay their rent promptly when they have brought money with them or when they receive good wages, but later on become difficult to manage because they find it hard to adjust themselves to city life.

A firm on East Forty-seventh Street reported that it has a large number of Negro tenants, makes leases to them, has no difficulty in collecting rents, and considers them more desirable than the whites who preceded them; a firm on Indiana Avenue expressed the opinion that depreciation is very great in houses rented to Negroes. That Negro tenants pay their rent promptly was the experience of a real estate agent on Cottage Grove Avenue. He has many Negro tenants on leases and is well satisfied with them, although he does not think they take as good care of the property as do the whites; Negroes are usually occupants of old buildings, which are more difficult to take care of.

Another real estate dealer on Cottage Grove Avenue who leases to Negroes finds that usually they adhere to the terms of the lease, although they sometimes move without notice. A dealer on Wabash Avenue, who rents flats to Negroes, said that he looked up the housing record of Negroes carefully before letting them in, yet he sometimes had trouble with them. Once he rented a flat to a mother and daughter, and the next day he found another family living in it; but on the whole he was well satisfied to have Negroes as tenants.

A prominent official of the Grand Boulevard district of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association, which seeks to keep Negroes out of Hyde Park, stated that a fundamental fault in connection with the strained relations between whites and Negroes was the failure of white owners to keep their property in good condition so that it might be occupied "efficiently," that is, by white persons. Another official of that organization said that Negro tenants could not be expected to repair white men's property; that there are a great many dwellings in the South Side Negro district that ought to be condemned by the city health department, and that Negroes are compelled to live in them because they can get nothing better.

In analyzing responsibility for depreciation, in the area from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street and from State Street to the lake, it is difficult to determine to just what extent the Negroes are there because of prior depreciation, and to what extent present depreciation is due to their presence. It is certain, however, that a large part of the depreciation is not justly chargeable to them, and that their contribution is attributable partly to their economic status and partly to the deep-seated prejudice against them. There are many instances in which property occupied by them has appreciated in value. This will always be true when the use by Negroes, or the demand for such use, is higher or greater than any other use or demand. A symptom of the general prejudice is the very prevalent belief that if Negroes have once occupied property its value is thereby "destroyed" for white persons. This is true only until it has a value for use by whites greater than its value for use by Negroes. So long and only so long as Negroes as a class are, or are generally deemed to be, at the bottom of the economic scale will their presence in a neighborhood depreciate values. At present the fact stands out that Negro occupancy is an unmistakable symptom of depreciation—an indication that the value of property has fallen to their economic level, as well as an aid to depreciation in its last stages.

IV. DEPRECIATION IN HYDE PARK

The area bounded by Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets and Michigan and Cottage Grove avenues has several property owners' protective associations for the purpose of preserving property values. Their dominant interest has been the exclusion of Negroes because these associated property owners believe that Negroes always depreciate the values of real estate. Negroes have moved into the neighborhood and there has been depreciation. Therefore Negroes are the cause.

A complete understanding of the situation requires that it be determined to what extent property values decreased because Negroes moved in, and to what extent Negroes moved in because property values had decreased. There is no doubt that the thousands of protests against the "invasion" of Negroes were sincere. It is also true that scarcely ten Negroes now living there could have purchased their properties at the original prices.

A leading real estate dealer said that "when a Negro moves into a block the value of the properties on both sides of the street is depreciated all the way from $100,000 to $500,000, depending upon the value of the property in the block"; that it was a fact and that there was no escaping it.

It's a condition that is inherent in the human race ... a man will not buy a piece of property or put his money in or invest in it where he knows that he is liable to be confronted the next day or the next year or even five years hence with the problem of having colored people living alongside of his investment. This depreciation runs all the way from 30 to 60 per cent. Some time ago a survey was made as a result of which it was estimated that the influx of Negroes into white neighborhoods during the last two years had depreciated property on the South Side about $100,000,000.

He cited as evidences of this the increased difficulty of negotiating loans on South Side realty on any terms, and the fact that some loan companies refused to write them at all, and loan values there had dropped enormously.

The Grand Boulevard district of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association reported an even larger estimate of the depreciation caused by the coming of Negroes into property near that boulevard. A committee of the Association in a report made early in 1920 claimed that the coming of Negro owners and tenants into that territory had depreciated property values of $400,000,000 fully 50 per cent.

The advent of the first Negro families in a white district usually creates something like a panic. The white residents, in a great many instances, fearing contiguity with Negroes and property loss, hasten to offer their property for sale and move elsewhere. Even a threat that Negroes intend to occupy a certain block or neighborhood will cause an exodus of white people, and their property is customarily sold at a sacrifice. When many properties are thus thrown on the market low prices are the certain result.

When in recent years, Negroes moved into the Hyde Park district, animosity was aroused, and numerous bombings of property occupied by Negroes followed. One of the oldest South Side real estate dealers, quoted in the Daily News' series of articles in the summer of 1919, expressed the tense feeling of an association there that was seeking methods to drive out and keep out the Negroes:

We want to be fair. We want to do what is right, but these people will have to be more or less pacified. At a conference where their representatives were present I told them we might as well be frank about it, "You people are not admitted to our society," I said. Personally I have no prejudice against them. I have had experience of many years dealing with them, and I'll say this for them: I have never had to foreclose a mortgage on one of them. They have been clean in every way and always prompt in their payments. But, you know, improvements are coming along the lake shore, the Illinois Central, and all that; we can't have these people coming over here. Not one cent has been appropriated by our organization for bombing or anything like that.

They injure our investments. They hurt our values. I couldn't say how many have moved in, but there's at least a hundred blocks that are tainted. We are not making any threat, but we do say that something must be done. Of course, if they come in as tenants, we can handle the situation fairly easily, but when they get a deed, that's another matter.

This fear of Negro neighbors has been used by some real estate agents in promoting speculative schemes. By sending a Negro to inquire about property, they alarm the neighbors so that they will consider offers of purchase much below the normal prices. When the excitement has abated values rise again, and a profit is made.

In the actual depreciation of Hyde Park property there were several factors, usually overlooked, that were in no wise attributable to the presence of Negroes. Some of Chicago's finest residences were located on Michigan Avenue and Grand Boulevard south of Thirty-ninth Street. This was an extension of the early fashionable South Side district and had residences that cost $350,000. But as in the case of the earlier South Side the neighborhood long since had lost some of its first settlers and had begun to decline. The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, was near the Hyde Park neighborhood. To accommodate the millions of visitors at the Exposition hotels and apartment houses were built in that district far in excess of the normal need. The apartment houses, moreover, affected the exclusiveness of the residence streets. The buildings were speculations. Large sums were expended in the hope of immediate exceptional profits. Property on Sixty-third Street sold at the Exposition time for three times the price it could command today. This is typical of the speculative values that then prevailed there. After the Exposition the removal of the first residents to the North Side and to suburbs steadily increased.

The abnormal years just preceding the Exposition had brought in thousands of workmen, who were thrown out of work when the Exposition buildings were finished. This and the panic of 1893 made building costs very low and caused further construction of dwellings in that district. Mr. L. M. Smith, a prominent South Side real estate man, described this change at a meeting of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association:

The condition that existed after the World's Fair, if you will remember, in the material yards and the labor market was this: Every yard was loaded up, and the carpenters and the mechanics that were stranded here after the World's Fair were glad to take jobs as janitors at $25 a month, in order that they could have good warm places for their families, and buildings that were put up three and four years after the Fair, along in 1894, 1895, and 1896, could be built at about 30 per cent cheaper than those that were put up during the World's Fair. The consequences were that you could rent a flat cheaper in a brand-new modern building than you could in a building that was put up during the World's Fair, and as the older buildings could not be rented, the owners finally had to come down in their rent more and more; they got in less and less desirable tenants until finally the whole territory became undesirable.

These first "undesirables" were not Negroes, for Negroes had not then moved across State Street. And there were other causes for the vacancies and removals that admitted Hyde Park's first undesirables beside the overbuilding. One was the proximity of the Stock Yards. Since the South Siders could not have the Stock Yards moved, many of them moved themselves. The railroads along the lake front, with their cinders, smoke, and noise, were also a factor. Another was the creeping in of industrial plants that located in and near the district, frequently in the face of protests. A striking instance of this is the large assembly plant of an automobile company at Thirty-ninth Street and Michigan Avenue. During recent years the automobile industry has practically taken control of Michigan Avenue, once the most beautiful street of the South Side.

The coming of apartment houses and boarding-houses was another signal of declining values. It was shown that for twenty-five years scarcely a new residence had been built on Grand Boulevard, once noted for its handsome residences—due principally to the extensive building of apartment houses there.

Racial prejudice other than that against Negroes has operated in many instances to depress property values. The presence of Jews, Germans, Irish, Italians, and Swedes has at times been objectionable to neighborhoods of Americans or of another race. A leader in the movement to remove Negroes from the Grand Boulevard area gave evidence of this, saying: "I know the Irish killed a certain boulevard. I know the Jews hurt another one, and I know the gambling element hurt another one."

On the South Side the Negroes were preceded by Irish. The original settlers in the area around Thirty-first and Dearborn streets were mainly Irish laborers who worked in the lumber yards and mills, the Stock Yards, and other South Side industries. When they moved westward among their own people, thirty-five years ago, the Negroes took their places.

Sometimes social or sentimental values are involved in the depreciation brought about when a new race or nationality breaks down the exclusiveness of a residence district. After the Exposition, for example, when wealthy residents of Michigan Avenue, and Grand and Drexel boulevards deserted their houses for more fashionable locations, many of them were bought by Jews. This operated to depreciate adjacent property in the opinion of those who disliked Jews as neighbors.

How the changes take place was well described by an experienced real estate man: The original families have divided up and moved away; sons and daughters have married; the servant problem has become acute, making it difficult to maintain large houses; thus apartment houses have become popular; houses are older and deteriorated, apartments are new and modern. In 1915 when the number of apartments for rent was in excess of the demand, a tenant would spend $25 or $30 in order to move into an apartment across the street merely because it happened to be fitted with glass door knobs; a high-class residence at Forrestville Avenue and Forty-fifth Street was sold twenty years ago for $12,000; yet he told the purchasers ten years ago that the property would not sell for more than $4,000 to $6,000; and that was before Negroes had moved into the neighborhood. Apartments in that vicinity still command a price approaching their original cost of building, because the demand for them is stronger than for houses.

This real estate man made the broad statement that the depreciation has taken effect, in the majority of cases, before a Negro family has moved into a neighborhood. There is depreciation, he thought, due to prejudice, when a Negro family moves into a good neighborhood that has been exclusively white, but that there are very few such instances for the reason that Negroes prefer to live where they are welcome, where there is no antagonism. With regard to the district between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets, State Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, he stated that the entrance of the Negro had not appreciably affected values.

Another real estate dealer, experienced in South Side property and in selling to Negroes, expressed similar opinions. The greatest depreciation, he felt, was in the expensive residences, and he doubted whether property as a whole in the square mile centered at State and Thirty-fifth streets had been depreciated much if at all.

There was agreement among the authorities consulted that in an exclusive neighborhood of wealthy residents marked depreciation in large residences has taken place, followed by the introduction of apartment buildings. One of the men who had earnestly opposed Negro entrance into the Grand Boulevard district recalled when valuations on Grand and Drexel boulevards were from $400 to $600 a front foot; then they fell to $125 or $150 a foot; and then gradually climbed back to $175 or $200 a foot on account of the introduction of apartment buildings.

Such variations in value are the usual accompaniment of unguided growth in a large city. This unguided development brought depreciation, which was manifest before Negroes began to make their appearance in the area.

The spread of clandestine prostitution, discussed in connection with the area north of Thirty-ninth Street, did not stop at Thirty-ninth Street. As the environment maps indicate,[25] there was a noticeable increase from 1916 to 1918 in the number of houses or flats used by prostitutes in the area south of Thirty-ninth Street. These changes occurred before the spread of the Negro population reached the neighborhood. Two houses, for example, at 4404 and 4406 Grand Boulevard, bought by a Negro woman and bombed four times after she moved in, had been occupied by prostitutes just prior to her purchase.

The coming of Negroes.—In 1916 hundreds of buildings in the Hyde Park area stood vacant and had been so for some time. Owners and real estate men were offering large concessions in the effort to get tenants. Values had fallen greatly. A prominent real estate man closely in touch with the neighborhood estimated that 25 per cent of the buildings there were vacant, and that there was little prospect of renting or selling them. Coincident with this oversupply in Hyde Park was an acute demand among Negroes for houses, intensified by the sudden addition of about 50,000 migrants. Many of them had sold their property in the South and brought the money with them. Hyde Park landlords were willing to sell or rent to them rather than lose their property entirely. Many Negroes, however, instead of renting, purchased the properties because of the exceptional terms offered.

This continued for about two years, when a demand for houses again arose among the white population. There was inactivity in building throughout the war period. Chicago was sharing in the housing shortage which affected the whole country, which was estimated in the early part of 1921 at 50,000 houses. As the demand of whites for housing became acute, Hyde Park owners began to feel that their property was at a disadvantage due to the presence of Negroes.

Plans for beautifying the lake front and improving Hyde Park were emphasized as a reason for holding on to property there. Alderman Schwartz, in addressing a meeting of the Grand Boulevard district of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association, said:

The South Side, and Hyde Park and Kenwood in particular, in past years has been the choice residential section of Chicago, the show place of Chicago. Grand Boulevard is the most magnificent street in the world, the finest boulevard of our wonderful boulevard system. I know that for many, many years, in this town, it was the ambition of people living in other parts of the city to arrange matters so that they could have their homes on the South Side in the place where you now live.

We have seen the rapid deterioration. In the council and in the committees we have decided that we must do something. The law has some very definite limitations written into our constitution and statutes. It cannot afford any relief. You yourselves must resurrect the South Side.

As one instance of what we attempted to do in the way of assuring to the people who reside here that the South Side can and will continue to be the great place we live in, we passed the Lake Front Ordinance. You people probably never realized what a wonderful thing that will be for the South Side. It will take in the lake front from Twelfth Street south to Fifty-first; it will affect the very choicest residential district in Chicago, the territory between Thirty-ninth Street and Forty-seventh Street—in this portion of the ward where we now are, something like $125,000,000 will be expended in reclaiming the lake front for you people, you men and women who must stand together to save your homes, see that your homes are kept as fine places to live in, that your neighbors are kept the most desirable neighbors in the city of Chicago, so that you may enjoy the benefit of that wonderful improvement that is to come. Think of that tremendous stretch, from Thirty-ninth to Forty-seventh, of bathing facilities, the finest in the world. More than a year and a half ago an estimate was made of the loss in property values in the Oakland district, north of Forty-third Street, and that was estimated to be $100,000,000. Now it is not only the loss of money that interests us. It means not only that somebody has lost a certain amount of wealth, but it means that somebody has lost comfort in living; someone has lost joy in his home; someone has lost the opportunity to give his children the environment that he wanted to give.

A survey made by the Hyde Park Property Owners' Association in 1920 showed that there were then 3,300 property owners in the area bounded by Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fifth streets, Michigan Avenue and Cottage Grove Avenue, and that of this number 1,000 were Negroes. Then began the attempts to move Negroes[26] back into "their own neighborhood."

Many of the Negroes who moved into this area had substantial resources enabling them either to buy property outright or so to arrange for payments through instalments and mortgages as to render themselves secure against efforts to remove them. But in so doing they further complicated the status of the neighborhood. Few white persons recognize the marked differences among Negroes, so that in purely commercial dealings they are not as careful in selecting Negro tenants as they would be among whites. As a result some Negroes who secured property there proved damaging to property values, just as would persons of a similar type from any other race.

Many of the houses for sale or rent were not suited to the incomes of ordinary wage-earners. White persons whose incomes were sufficient to pay the rental for such large houses preferred a different sort of house or neighborhood; and whites of smaller incomes could find more suitable houses elsewhere; while Negroes, hard pressed for houses, rented them, and took lodgers to fill them and help pay the rent.

The exclusive occupancy of a block by Negroes is usually followed by less care of streets and alleys. This neglect is general between Twenty-second and Thirty-ninth streets and is beginning to appear in the territory between Thirty-ninth and Forty-third streets where recently blocks have been "turned over" to Negroes. Community associations are being formed in some of these areas to protest against this laxity, and stimulate neighborhood interest in neat premises.

Appreciation of property.—When values fall extremely due to a selling panic among white owners, it is often followed by a decided recovery as the Negro demand grows. Such a new market among Negroes, however, seems never to have been strong enough to send prices for residence purposes back to original levels. But many instances have shown that prices rarely stay at the low "panic" level and frequently rebound to a level much above that at which panic sales were made. Mr. Gates, a prominent South Side real estate dealer, said: "If a Negro family locates in a street where the population is all white, values are cut in two, but this would not be likely to occur if a large number of Negroes were ready and willing to buy adjacent property at established prices. Supply and demand would rule in such a market." Other real estate dealers expressed the opinion that "if the white owners were not over-anxious to sell when the Negro 'invasion' begins, they might later on obtain as much or more for their property than they could have obtained before the advent of the Negroes."

In numerous cases Negroes created a market for property when there was none. A prominent white business man long resident on the South Side told of a row of houses on South Park Avenue and Grand Boulevard that were vacant for years until sold or rented to Negroes: they could not be sold at all until they took on a value because Negroes were ready to buy them.

A prominent Negro physician bought a piece of property in an exclusive white Hyde Park neighborhood. He lived there seven years and then sold the property at an advance, and, to his knowledge, there had been no depreciation in adjacent property.

A white real estate dealer bought a house in Grand Boulevard between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth streets about five years ago. When Negro residents came some of the white people sold at a sacrifice. But he remained and four years later sold the property for $2,000 above its cost to him.

An interesting instance related to property on Langley Avenue into which a Negro family moved in 1919. The value of contiguous property remained the same as of property two and three blocks east where no Negroes lived. Six months later, across the street from this Negro family, a white man, aware of their occupancy, bought a house and paid $1,500 more than it had formerly been offered for.

Thus, notwithstanding the prejudice against Negro neighbors that usually obtains, a block or neighborhood into which Negroes move is not always and necessarily depreciated, so many and active are the other factors contributing to depreciation (or sometimes preventing); and so frequently has it occurred that these factors of depreciation have operated extensively prior to the arrival of Negroes.

The fluctuation of values in response to sentiment, both inherent and stimulated, manifested itself in a practice of certain real estate dealers on the South Side. Although it was stated and believed that values were irrevocably destroyed when a Negro family occupied a building, these agents boosted values by announcing that another building had been "saved" or "redeemed," thoroughly renovated, and restored to its "rightful occupants." The Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association stated that this plan had succeeded in sixty-eight instances of buildings "reclaimed" by the Association.

A Prairie Avenue block.—To study the processes and factors of depreciation the Commission selected an obviously depreciated block on the once fashionable Prairie Avenue, between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth streets, into which no Negroes had yet moved.

In 1885-90 Prairie Avenue was one of Chicago's most fashionable and exclusive residential streets. Imposing brown- and gray-stone residences, with balconies of stone and ornamental iron, broad bay-windows, and large well-kept lawns behind high iron fences, gave evidence of the wealth and social position of their owners.

The gradual decline of Prairie Avenue, as North Side and North Shore neighborhoods became more fashionable places of residence, and long before the approach of Negroes was even thought of, was exemplified in this block. Chicago Blue Book, a broadly inclusive social directory, published annually, shows that in 1890 the families living at forty-nine of the sixty-one addresses in the block were listed; in 1900 there were eighteen of the forty-nine left; in 1910 there were only ten, and in 1915 only two. Second and third occupants of the houses took the places of fifteen of the original forty-nine in 1900, of nine in 1910, and of four in 1915. The Blue Book listings at five-year intervals are shown in the table on the following page.

A CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD

From 1895 on, those who moved away were to be found scattered all the way from Lake Shore Drive to Lake Forest. The newcomers who took their places appeared decreasingly in the Blue Book and more and more frequently they had Irish or Jewish names.

A closer examination of the changing occupancy of the sixty-one houses in the block shows strikingly the rapidity and extent of the decline and reveals some of its causes.

"BLUE BOOK" LISTINGS IN PRAIRIE AVENUE BLOCK

Year Number of Houses Listed with no Change in Occupants Number of Houses Not Listed Number of Houses with Second and Third Occupants Listed