Unincorporated Communities, Race, and Social Justice

 Underbounding -  Systematic, spatial exclusion of minorities in unincorporated areas.

This trend is common in predominately Latino and African American communities. Most were former colonias and/or historic African American communities.  Most research and activism around this issue has taken place in California's migrant worker communities and some in the Carolinas. This problem however is prevalent on the outskirts of major cities and suburbs throughout America.

The work in Fifth Street is a community in recovery from such abuse attempting to develop its own capacity and build upon an invisible significant sense of place.

A few links to a video and notable articles about the phenomena follow.


Presentation from NLADA Conference on Municipal Underbounding from Minnow Media on Vimeo.

Gomillion v. Lightfoot might be the best-known municipal-boundaries case ... in 1960 the Supreme Court threw out Alabama state law that re-drew the boundaries of Tuskegee from the square, on the map below, to the lighter-colored 28-sided figure which excluded all but 4 or 5 Blacks, while retaining all White residents."

 Municipal Underbounding: Annexation and Racial Exclusion in Small Southern Towns

Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction' wrests political control over land use from excluded minority populations  

 How Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation Works in Post-Racial America

Underbounding and Infrastructure

References on underbounding.

Mapped Out of Local Democracy

Originally posted by Andrea Roberts at http://www.sensingplace.com/