Ethnic Enclaves

The Deer Hunter and Dog Whistles

Last night I rewatched the Deer Hunter, primarily so I could see the shots of my new neighborhood, and the church on my wall and outside my window. I think my block is the one the bridesmaids run on, actually; maybe the next block over, but I’m going to say it’s my block anyway. And what I would not do to have the Eagle supermarket around the corner!

That first hour (if you don’t want to endure the Russian roulette scenes again, just watch the first third) captures something right, I’d say, and I spent a lot of time last night thinking about ethnic enclaves, in Cleveland and the region; what they offer, what they preclude; the warmth they can provide, the hatred they can inculcate. Stevie and Mike, today, could be the old guys at diners interviewed by The New York Times about why they voted for Trump; two women are punched in the first twenty minutes, and yet I cannot deny a certain longing for such close bonds, or to have had a date with John Savage’s character in my early twenties. Close-knit ethnic communities in Cleveland—what defines so much of the west side here—is complex and conflicted and rich and troubling all at once.

Also yesterday, I read an article in the local newspaper about a potential development in Little Italy. This quote stopped me cold:

City Councilman Blaine Griffin, Ward 6, who represents the neighborhood, also spoke in opposition to the project, saying his position stems from Little Italy being “one of the last ethnic enclaves in the city of Cleveland” and his desire to “protect the historical context of the area.”

Okay—seems we need to unpack the term “ethnic enclave.” Italians have been in this country for generations, and are not economically and/r geographically dependent on their heritage or nationality—that is, for some reason restricted or enabled to, say, be restaurant owners, chefs, and waiters at Italian restaurants, unwelcome or disadvantaged in other neighborhoods.

What I’m saying is I do not think we need to preserve Italian ethnic enclaves. We should certainly never welcome enclaves created by necessity— a shtetl, say—or preserved by barriers—a wall at the border. (Here’s an interesting piece on old and new urban ethnic enclaves.). And sure, maybe we should welcome the rise of Somali or Bhutanese or other new enclaves that nurture refugee and recent immigrant communities that have language, economic, familial or other reasons for retaining a close-knit community that might be less integrated into the fabric of a city.

But maybe I am just thinking too hard. Maybe we all do know exactly what “ethnic enclave” means in this context: it’s a dog whistle for whites-only.

It seems to me the some if not all of the residents of Little Italy of who voted down this proposal want to ensure a certain “character” and ethnic-homogeneity in an area of Cleveland that is overwhelmingly African-American. That’s a pernicious form of nationalism or nativism; that’s racism.

As to the question of development per so: we do not have a housing problem in Cleveland. We do not have a gentrification problem, as the term is often understood. What we have is a problem with widespread and endemic poverty, and stupefyingly high segregation. Plus, don’t forget:

45% of the land value in Cleveland is tax-exempt

3.5 billion, or 14.6% percent of land value in Cleveland is tax abated.

I now know of three people eager to develop properties in impoverished areas of the city that are right on the other (non-opportunity) side of Opportunity Zones,.

Add to this growing list: yesterday I read this article about how hard it is to get a mortgage if you want a smaller, more modest house, and how that is playing out in Cleveland.

Lenders extended about 106,000 mortgages with balances between $10,000 and $70,000 in the U.S. last year, worth $5.1 billion. That is down 38% from almost 171,000 in 2009, according to figures compiled by Attom Data Solutions, a real-estate data firm. The drop-off at the bottom end of the market has been far swifter than at the top. Origination was down a more modest 26% for mortgages between $70,000 and $150,000, and it rose 65% for mortgages above that range.

Only about a quarter of homes that sold for less than $70,000 were financed with a mortgage, while almost 80% of sales between $70,000 and $150,000 had one, according to an Urban Institute analysis last year. Low-end borrowers had their applications denied at a higher rate than those taking out bigger mortgages even when comparing borrowers with similar credit quality, according to the think tank.

So, if you want to contribute to the tax base of this city—and be in what will soon be the minority of landowners,—the majority being non-profits like hospitals and schools, or developers who know how to leverage tax abatements—you may well be told no, sorry, because you are asking for too little money. And if you want to rent—well, in some places, it’s best if you are “in keeping with the character of the neighborhood,” aka “an ethnic” as the phrase was used here in the mid-20th century, aka white.

Nostalgia for Russian-American dancing and the bonhomie of loyal, drunken friends is as tempting as toxic masculinity and sexism are ruinous; anyone extolling the charm of “ethnic enclaves” should be called out as quickly as bankers should offer any individual with good credit and a downpayment a mortgage on a house of any size, in any neighborhood, in this town.

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