What is it about?
Shaker Heights has long been known as an elite suburb. In 1960, it had the highest family income of any suburb in the U.S. The city enforced elaborate deed restrictions to keep out "undesirables," namely Blacks and Jews, even after enforcement of racial and religious covenants became illegal in 1948. The article traces the community effort to prevent, control, and maintain integration from the 1925 to the present. Today Shaker Heights is among the few integrated communities in the United States.
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Why is it important?
Shaker Heights is one of the few successfully integrated suburbs in the United States. While certainly not entirely successful, because the more wealthy sections are mostly white and its black population is concentrated on the south side where homes are smaller, Shaker Heights has been integrated for fifty years. Nicole Ng's bestseller, "Little Fires Everywhere" has increased curiosity about the history of Shaker Heights.
Perspectives
My family moved to Shaker Heights in 1971 in response to an ad placed by the city's housing office in the "New Republic" targeted at young white professionals moving to the Cleveland area. By controlling the housing market, the city slowed down the rapid turnover of homes to blacks in the 1960s and 1970s. These measures, though discriminatory, may have saved the suburb from becoming entirely black.
Virginia Dawson
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Protection from Undesirable Neighbors: The Use of Deed Restrictions in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Journal of Planning History, August 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1538513218791466.
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