Chasing a Moving City: Residential segregation’s historical impact on Lubbock

In East Lubbock, a building located in the 300 block of Erskine Street deteriorates slowly. Photo by Reece Nations.

By Uvie Bikomo

Crosby Morton grew up in a divided Lubbock.

“Lubbock was a segregated city,” Morton said in a phone interview. “You could live in different places, but when I grew up, and my recollection from the fifties until now, most of the stuff for African Americans centered around East Lubbock.”

From 1890 to the 21st century, East Lubbock was a racially segregated region in the city. African American individuals were legally only allowed to live in the East and North side of Lubbock because of a racial segregation policy that was once common in many cities. In Lubbock, this ordinance was not repealed until 2006, almost a century after the 1917 Buchanan v. Warley case, in which the Supreme Court declared residential segregation to be unconstitutional.

Morton, Lubbock native and member of the Lubbock Roots Historical Arts Council, said seeing someone of a different race happened only under a few circumstances.

“We had small neighborhood stores,” Morton said. “We didn’t have any big chains that were in those areas. It was a segregated environment; it was not bi-racial. The only people that we saw of different colors were probably the police or the fire department or a meal company – service people.”

Morton said with time, things would become reconstructive.

“Around about 1959, urban renewal was the government program to clean up the inner city and it came to Lubbock,” Morton said. “They bought out a lot of property.”

Located at 500 East Broadway, this dilapidated building is now an art installation dedicated to graffiti. Photo by Reece Nations.

The program, focused on North and East Lubbock, was promoted as an attempt to renew and rehabilitate the economic aspects of the regions, according to Morton. This program ran from 1960 to 1975, over the course of which more than 400 family homes and lots were purchased by the government.

Morton also said this program, originally created with good intentions, resulted in the displacement of many families in the region.

“After urban renewal hit, they started tearing down a lot of the houses,” Morton said. “The intent of the government program was that they were going to bring back the residents that lived in that neighborhood. They would buy them out, give them some money, and they could build another house. Well, it didn’t really work because a lot of people left.”

On May 11, 1970, everything changed.

Leon Williams, a long-time Lubbock resident and member of the Lubbock Roots Historical Arts Council, said the tornado that hit Lubbock that day reshaped the city’s history.

“We already had the neighborhood integrating in the sixties,” Williams recalled in a phone interview. “And then when the tornado hit, that caused the displacement of African Americans from another area and they moved into the east side area and Parkway, and the whites moved out.”

Williams contends this shift did not better the situation for African Americans.

“I think it made it worse,” Williams said. “The money is not gonna follow black people, the money is gonna follow white people. So if white people hadn’t been stimulated to move out of East Lubbock, I think the economic development of East Lubbock would have progressed in a different manner.”

Located at East Erskine and North Rosebud, this pumpjack resides in the shadow of residential development. Photo by Reece Nations.

Williams also said today, the north and east sides of Lubbock are facing a major urban decay and economic decline.

One of the best indicators of urban decay is population decline, according to Williams. A declining population can show links to the economic growth of a region.

Data from the Urban Observatory shows population growth across Lubbock since 2010 has been uneven. Population in the south part of the city rose by 1.6 percent, and in the west by 1.5 percent. These numbers are phenomenal compared to the growth of 0.8 percent in the north and 0 percent in East Lubbock.

Dimitri Volchenkov, an associate professor of mathematics and statistics at Texas Tech University, studies how growth patterns shape so-called infinite paths, or central places where people might easily meet each other by chance. He found a much smaller number of infinite paths in North and East Lubbock compared to the rest of the city.

“Basically, it means that … people are settling [south and west] and not in the northeast,” Volchenkov explained, adding that uneven growth is caused by the location of railways.

The railways cut North and East Lubbock away from the rest of the city, Volchenkov says, and this divider is causing a modern-day form of segregation because people prefer to not live near a railway.

“The railways originally created this city,” he said. “But then nowadays there aren’t any passenger railways, just industry… People don’t go there, and therefore nobody wants to make shops there.”

A segment of industrial railway running underneath the I-27 highway overpass. Photo by Reece Nations.

Volchenkov said the population shift and urban decay are also illustrated by significantly higher unemployment and crime rates in North and East Lubbock, compared to South and West Lubbock. These crime rates have pushed up Lubbock’s overall crime rate, which is now “higher than in 96.4 percent of all United States cities,” he added.

Quoting an official city government index, Volchenkov said the unemployment rates in North Lubbock at almost 40 percent, compared to West Lubbock’s rate of 5.7 percent.

Robert Baxter, a lifelong Lubbock resident, said the high unemployment and crime stem from a lack of resources.

“The jobs are way out in West and South Lubbock, and the bus stops at a specific time,” Baxter explained. “So, if [people] are gonna go and work way across town, there is no way they can get home on time. And there are some kids that go to school, so they would have to catch the bus after school. But if the bus stops at seven, they have no way to get home.”

Baxter also said as the city develops away from its north and east sides, people in these neighborhoods are in a bind. Businesses do not invest there and homes are underpriced because of the unfavorable location, so they cannot sell them and move.

“Most people that are doing crime –  the drugs, the robbing – they see no other viable way out of what they are doing,” Baxter said. “They don’t have money to move out to the south and west so they are stuck in the East and North Lubbock because the rent is low. It is just a forever cycle if we don’t get change.”

Baxter says incentives are lacking for people to build businesses and move into the area.

“We have one grocery store,” Baxter said with a sigh. “There was a bank there and they took the bank out of the grocery store so there are no banks in East Lubbock. The stores close at midnight, the same ones that if you go 10 or 15 more blocks, they stay open 24 hours. It’s horrible.”

Volchenkov believes the solution is two-prong: the railway should go away and the university should expand “its campus not westward but in these empty places.” If Texas Tech built more infrastructure in the East and North sides, he said, money would flow and the community would benefit.

“It takes decades for a city to die, and therefore every day we can say ‘okay, we have a flourishing city,’” Volchenkov said. “But it’s clear what is going on, finally.”

This railroad crossing, a symbolic doorway between communities, separates the developed from the under-developed. Photo by Reece Nations.

Morton and Williams say fixing the school system is also very important.

“Every school in East Lubbock has been repurposed or shut down,” Williams said. “One of the things that draw you to a neighborhood is education … Your kid has to be bussed across town to get to school.”

Morton adds that investing in housing is key because the school system is dependent on tax revenues.

“If you do not invest in building houses in North and East Lubbock, well you’re gonna have a problem maintaining your entire school system,” Morton says. “We do not have the tax base. There’s a difference between a house of $300,000 on Milwaukee [Avenue] and a $100,000 house here.”

Baxter contends that giving the area more positive attention would be good business.

“People need to realize that a lot of the people over there want change,” Baxter said. “They want new stores, clothing stores, new places to eat. …. But it is hard to get that when there is no focus from the city or other people.”

About Reece Nations, Managing Editor