ABSTRACT
Since 1968, residential integration between the races has occurred but at a relatively slow pace. While schools, offices and factories often have become thoroughly racially mixed, entire blocks of neighbourhoods, indeed whole areas, remain all black or all white. The typical American metropolis has some kind of visible ‘Black Belt’ – largely black neighbourhoods that serve as home to a big percentage of their African American population. Banks and savings and loan associations, the US equivalent of building societies, have had one main accusation repeatedly levelled against them in the area of racial housing: bias in deciding whether to lend. For decades, housing issues involving blacks have been discussed in the context of African Americans suffering at the hands of white injustices. Recriminations that used to be invoked almost exclusively across the colour line are now commonly made by blacks divided by social and economic standing.
