By the Alliance for Leadership and Interconnection
The city of Cincinnati's characterization on the
national stage as one of America's most "livable" cities was
undeniably challenged in the aftermath of the urban uprising
this past April.
What the establishment media commonly referred to in oversimplified
fashion as "race riots" were in actuality the social ramifications
of the system of economic apartheid under which thousands
of Cincinnatians have lived for years and continue to live
under everyday.
In its application for Federal Empowerment Zone status in
1999, the city recognized that compared with the 75 largest
cities in the country, Cincinnati had the:
·12th highest rate of poverty, 24.3percent -- higher
than New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Baltimore;
·9th lowest median household income ($21,006);
·9th greatest population loss during the 1990s (minus
5 percent);
·6th lowest percent of new homes built between 1980
and 1990; and
·9th lowest home ownership rate (35 percent).
More recently, federal census data for 2000 show Cincinnati
stands as the eighth-most racially segregated city in the
United States as measured by an "index of dissimilarity."
What's more, this represents a worsening from its position
as the 18th-most segregated city a decade ago.
For 50 years, the city has used statistics and data from
African-American neighborhoods in its applications for federal
and state assistance; and yet these same neighborhoods remain
underdeveloped today, as evidenced by their declaration as
Federal Empowerment Zones two years ago.
In 1949 the city began applying for federal grants under
Title I of the Housing Act of 1949, which targeted monies
to local governments to assist residents in the revitalization
of underdeveloped neighborhoods.
In 1959 the city of Cincinnati passed its own Urban Renewal
Law making local tax resources and development assistance
available to city residents for the purposes of neighborhood
revitalization.
In 1961 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development
sanctioned the city for its inequitable use and distribution
of community development funds and mandated the city to implement
a plan of corrective action in these African-American neighborhoods.
1978 was the first year the city of Cincinnati passed a
minority preference law in its awarding of city contracts,
development agreements, grants and loans in the face of multiple
studies finding patterns of racial discrimination and economic
exclusion over a period of many years.
In 1992 the "Croson Study" (performed by the University
of Cincinnati's Institute for Economic Policy) was released,
showing that despite the initial passage of the minority preference
law in 1978 and its seven subsequent amendments, there was
no significant increase in minority participation and benefits
in the city's economic expenditures.
In 1999 HUD declared parts of nine predominantly African-American
neighborhoods in Cincinnati "Economic Disaster Areas" as evidenced
by their official designation as Federal Empowerment Zones.
Already under the microscope of one federal investigation
into police practices, the city of Cincinnati has recently
been forced by HUD to respond to a request for another federal
investigation into the city's housing and community development
programs.
The city's attention to the development of its riverfront,
professional sports teams, retail shopping districts and integration
of market rate housing in urban neighborhoods has come at
the direct expense of the underdevelopment of these poor and
African-American neighborhoods for over 50 years.
The City of Cincinnati must be held accountable.
The criminal injustice system
Ohio is no exception to the startling national trend toward
the extremely disproportionate incarceration of its African-American
population. Newly released figures from the 2000 census, as
reported in The Cincinnati Enquirer, show that Ohio's
total African-American populations is at 11.5 percent, while
African-Americans comprise over half of Ohio's total prison
population at 50.1 percent!
The figures are similar for Ohio's condemned-prisoner population,
of whom 50.2 percent of the 199 inmates awaiting execution
on death row are African-American.
Such disparities begin early in the criminal justice machine
in Cincinnati. Of the nearly 40,000 people arrested and set
to stand trial in 2000, almost 64 percent were African-Americans
in a city whose census 2000 figures show to be only 42.9 percent
African-American.
The claims by the Hamilton County Prosecutor's office and
Cincinnati Police officials that they do not unfairly target
the city's minority population certainly ring hollow in the
face of such evidence.
A primary means by which the criminal justice system targets
African Americans is through its "war on drugs" rhetoric.
While most credible evidence and research suggests that drug
use in society is distributed widely across race and class
variables, national figures show that four of every five people
in jail on drug offenses is either African-American or Hispanic.
The nationally institutionalized racism embedded in drug
law enforcement is perhaps most clearly visible in the notorious
disparities between federal sentencing laws for abuse of the
crack and powder varieties of cocaine.
The city of Cincinnati has targeted its poor and African-American
urban communities for drug law enforcement to the extent that
since 1995, police have averaged 2,300 drug arrests per year
in its Over-the-Rhine neighborhood with a population of only
7,600. The drug enforcement hysteria reached a zenith in Over-the-Rhine,
where from 1996 until January 2000 the city enforced a drug
exclusion ordinance in the neighborhood, under which individuals
were banned from their own homes for drug arrests and convictions
for anywhere from 90 days to a year. The ordinance has since
been dismissed by the Ohio Supreme Court and in federal court
as unconstitutional.
Contrast such zero-tolerance enforcement targeted at the
city's poor urban communities with the recent decisions by
an arbitrator to reinstate a Cincinnati Police officer to
his former position as a drug crimes investigator after he
had been fired for admitting to his own past drug use and
constitutionally questionable police practices, and it becomes
difficult to explain away the appearance of a double standard.
For more than 50 years, largely the same poor and African-American
neighborhoods of Cincinnati have been identified for relief
and revitalization, while little of any real substance has
changed. The city continues with its apparent position of
benign neglect and then blames the victims in these neighborhoods
for the conditions of social decline to which it contributes
and perpetuates in the first place.
Economic polarization in the 1990s
The distribution in Ohio of economic gains made in the 1990s
mirrors that of the country at large, in that upper-income
households saw their earnings soar while the vast majority
of average- to low-income families struggled to keep pace
with inflation. Census figures for 2000 show that Ohio's median
household income of $39,480 increased by one percent over
the decade after adjusting for inflation, while the number
of households in Ohio earning $100,000 or more increased 337
percent over the same time period.
In its report, "The State of Working Ohio 2001," the non-profit
research institute Policy Matters Ohio observes that in 2000,
the inequality ratio between the 90th percentile (highest)
of wage earners in Cincinnati and the 10th percentile (lowest)
stood at 4.74 -- the highest such ratio of all major metropolitan
cities in Ohio.
The report further observes the widening gap in median wages
between white and African-American workers. During the 1990s,
white male wages recovered by three percent, while black male
wages continued to fall for a net decline between 1979 and
2000 of 23 percent, compared to a net decline in white male
wages of eight percent over the same period of time.
Renting in Cincinnati
Given the trend of increasing economic polarization by race
in Ohio, African Americans are likely to be affected disproportionately
by the city's lack of affordable rental housing.
The Cincinnati Post described in an article how,
in the summer of 2000, 28 moderately priced apartments in
the West End were filled immediately upon completion of construction,
leaving a lengthy waiting list of hopeful tenants in their
trail. It further cited a data survey compiled by a coalition
led by the Mortgage Bankers Association, which concluded new
construction of federally insured rental housing has "all
but disappeared in Cincinnati and a dozen other cities."
Further numbers compiled by the National Low Income Housing
Coalition paint an equally dire picture for Hamilton County:
·An extremely low income household (earning 30 percent
of the area median income of $61,000) can afford monthly rent
of no more than $458, while the fair market rent for a two-bedroom
unit is $576.
·A worker earning the minimum wage ($5.15 per hour)
must work 86 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom
unit at the area's fair market rent.
·The county's housing wage stands at $11.08. This is
the amount a worker would have to earn per hour in order to
be able to work 40 hours per week and afford a two-bedroom
unit at the area's fair market rent. This wage is 215 percent
of the current Ohio minimum wage of $5.15 and represents an
increase of 3.41 percent between 2000 and 2001.
Home ownership
The latest census figures on home ownership show Cincinnati
to be no less of a segregated city. Cincinnati's overall home
ownership rate of 38.9 percent in 2000 lags behind that of
every other major metropolitan city in Ohio. Home ownership
rates for 2000 by race show a breakdown of 48.3 percent for
whites versus 27 percent for blacks, starkly illustrating
that African-Americans in Cincinnati are much less likely
to own their homes than their white counterparts. Similarly,
these figures rank lower than all other Ohio cities.
