Dividing the City: Race-Restrictive Covenants and the Architecture of Segregation in St. Louis

Abstract

Dividing the City uses a newly discovered, parcel-level, record of restrictive covenants (circa 1850-1950) to document the scope, variety, location, timing, dissemination, and impact of racial restrictions in the City of St. Louis. We underscore the important differences, in their use and their impact, between new subdivision restrictions and petition-based restrictive agreements in older neighborhoods. And we establish the importance of these restrictions to both a dramatic increase in residential segregation before 1950 and the maintenance of that segregation—through public and private policies that emulated and adapted these restrictions even after the Supreme Court held them unenforceable—across the ensuing decades.