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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Rothstein characterize the justifications planning committees used for segregation and discrimination when they knew the Constitutional requirement?
(a) Disingenuous misdirection.
(b) Thin veneer of legalese.
(c) Thinly-disguised lies.
(d) Smoke and mirrors.

2. How does Rothstein characterize blockbusting?
(a) As a federal government policy.
(b) As a form of de jure segregation.
(c) As a few renegade real estate agents deceiving the public.
(d) As a form of collusion with the FHA.

3. Where does Rothstein say blockbusting had its roots?
(a) Racism.
(b) Slavery.
(c) Private decisions.
(d) Federal housing policy.

4. What development gave the Mereday family business?
(a) Rollingwood in Richmond, CA.
(b) Levittown.
(c) Stuyvesant town.
(d) De Porres in St. Louis.

5. What percentage of Westchester county, NY, subdivisions with more than 75 units, built between 1935 and 1947 does Rothstein say had racially restrictive covenants?
(a) 50%.
(b) 85%.
(c) 65%.
(d) 70%.

Short Answer Questions

1. What evidence does Rothstein say contradicts this claim that African Americans in a white neighborhood would decrease property value and therefore increase losses?

2. How does Rothstein characterize the FHA’s theory about value in terms African Americans bringing down housing prices?

3. When did Frank Stevenson work in a Richmond shipyard?

4. Which Constitutional Amendments does Rothstein say are violated by housing discrimination?

5. What does Rothstein say the state of the housing market was from 1930 through the 1950s?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the economic argument racist local governments used for restricting black families’ housing options?

2. What was the importance of the Supreme Court’s Buchanan decision in 1917?

3. How does Rothstein circumvent the argument that racially restrictive covenants and exclusionary zoning ordinances were private agreements?

4. How was housing policy affected by the 1968 Jones decision?

5. What does Rothstein cite as evidence that the government is obligated to remedy segregation?

6. Why does Rothstein say that Robert Mereday did not even bother filing an application for a mortgage?

7. What was the Supreme Court’s logic when it upheld an exclusionary zoning ordinance in Arlington Heights, Chicago in 1977?

8. How did towns and developments find ways around the Buchanan decision?

9. What was the evidence published in Appraisal Journal on the question of whether black families affect housing prices?

10. What role does Rothstein say the federal government had to play in segregating America’s housing?

(see the answer keys)

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