Saving the Neighborhood

“Saving the Neighborhood makes a convincing case for the proposition that the effect of legal provisions can be fully understood only in the context of relevant social norms, economic incentives, and informal influences.”—M. E. Ethridge, Choice

“A brilliant and disturbing history of how racial restrictions designed to keep black homeowners out of white neighborhoods became legally respectable and socially pervasive, and a powerful and subtle meditation on the interplay between law, violence, and social norms.”—Robert W. Gordon, Stanford Law School

“Saving the Neighborhood vividly analyzes the rise, fall, and enduring legacy of the major legal tool that created segregated housing in the United States. At the same time, this book is a moving account of real communities—of fearful residents struggling to control fragile city blocks, visionaries willing to risk everything for justice, and hustlers driven to profit from the hopes and hatreds that have defined the American experience.”—Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America