Exclusion in Arcadia

Abstract

Suburban developers changed the policy landscape of the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. Prior to the advent of oft-studied federal agencies during the Great Depression, developers shared ideas—first through informal correspondence in the 1890s and, later, through the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB). Among the most frequently discussed subjects was the exclusion of undesirable residents from planned communities. Using the case study of a Baltimore company, this article explores how ideas about residential segregation circulated into federal policy as well as their enduring legacy. After the local experiments of the 1890s, developers often spearheaded a growing movement to professionalize real estate. As NAREB leaders, they tied a vision of discrimination to the institution’s ethical and scientific aspirations. Once the association gained legitimacy and cultural capital, it supplied the government with the ideas that became standards and the personnel who codified them.