Summary

Chapter Five begins by discussing the idea of “seediness” (141). Seedy neighborhoods, Hayes states, implies the presence of vice, such as prostitution or drug use, but does cause actual violence. New York City was far seedier in the 1990s than it is today. That imposed a form of mental stress of middle and upper class residents; they were uncomfortable in certain neighbors. Hayes emphasizes that this seediness, though contemporaneous, was not directly related to violent crime. Though not based solely on race, seediness became associated with the migration of blacks to major cities and the subsequent white flight to the more serene suburbs. As blacks moved into cities, whites felt they were declining into seediness and sought refuge elsewhere. A related response was the development of discourse that allowed politicians and voters to express racist sentiment without using inherently racist terms. Hayes argues that while...