Construction Maison

Every metropolitan area in the nation is racially segregated, and Los Angeles is no exception. We tolerate residential segregation because we’re convinced that it happened informally — because of personal choices and private discrimination. But what cemented our separate neighborhoods is something most of us have forgotten — government’s unconstitutional and systematic insistence on segregated housing in the mid-20th century, establishing patterns that persist to this day. The 2010 census data show that 60% of Los Angeles’s African Americans live in neighborhoods where few whites are present. The exposure of blacks to whites is as minimal as it is in Chicago or Newark; concentrated African American poverty is as common in L.A. as in New York or Pittsburgh. The New Deal created the nation’s first civilian public housing in the 1930s, segregated not only in the South, but nationwide. In his autobiography, the African American poet Langston Hughes recounted his adolescence in Worl...

The same day it voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park — a move that white supremacists descended on the city to protest — the City Council did something that got much less publicity. It unanimously approved a $ 4 million spending plan to address racial disparities . Over the next five years, about $2.5 million is to be used to redevelop public housing ; $250,000 will go to expanding a park in a black neighborhood; and $20,000 a year will pay for G.E.D. classes for public housing residents . Photo K. Ian Grandison, a University of Virginia professor, with a map of what the rapidly gentrifying city looked like in the 1920s. Credit Matt Eich for The New York Times Activists call it reparations for the destruction of Vinegar Hill and other black neighborhoods here. “I’m hoping that other elected officials and policy makers from across the country can see it’s not enough to just move a damn statue,” said Wes Bellamy, the vice mayor, who proposed the plan. “I think symbol...

Malik paused. “Did it ever occur to you that people from my neighborhood are scared about rollin’ up on your neighborhood?” “Whatever,” Jim replied. “When’s the last time someone has had their head bashed in by some thugs in Stone Brook? When’s the last time someone had their car stolen at gunpoint when they were filling up their tank?” “Robbery and thugs ain’t the only things to fear. There are other things people like me gotta worry about. Stuff you wouldn’t understand.” Most people enter discussions of racial injustice like they’re entering a gun fight: heavily armed. Their weapons are statistics, experience, and a bevy of opinions and solutions. A new novel titled  Meals from Mars: A Parable of Prejudice and Providence  helps to de-escalate the conflict. Written by educator Ben Sciacca , this book will benefit not only his high school students in Fairfield, Alabama, but also suburbanites and those in between. Meals from Mars  opens with guns drawn on the two protagonists, Jim and...

It was the type of celebration that’s become commonplace in the Seaport District . Investors, developers, and other real estate types mingled earlier this summer at a groundbreaking ceremony for Echelon Seaport — $900 million worth of luxury condos and apartments set to rise from a parking lot on Seaport Boulevard. Advertisement Under a big white tent , guests sipped cocktails and listened as Governor Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh touted the glassy, gleaming business district sprouting around them.Away from the festivities, Alex Shing of Los Angeles- based Cottonwood Management — the project’s developer — spoke about the strong interest from investors all over the globe who wanted to buy into Boston’s booming Seaport. Get Talking Points in your inbox: An afternoon recap of the day’s most important business news , delivered weekdays. “This is probably the most valuable piece of dirt in the world,” Shing said. Yet to help finance the project, Cottonwood and its...