As Golf-Based NC Subdivisions Grow, Minority Towns Lack Basic Services

[hatrack]

PINEHURST, N.C., June 2- "Golf has made Moore County rich. There are spas, country clubs and new $2 million homes. The United States Open, to be held later this month on the most famous of the county's 43 golf courses, is expected to bring $124 million to the state. But as developers rush to provide "resort quality" amenities in the newest subdivisions, some neighborhoods have been left behind - without sewers, police service, garbage pickup or even, in some cases, piped water.

These enclaves, Jackson Hamlet, Midway and Waynor Road, are virtually all black. They butt up against, or are even completely surrounded by, affluent towns that are mostly white: Pinehurst, Aberdeen and Southern Pines. The 500 residents of these unincorporated enclaves are close enough to point out sewer lines that run past their properties en route to new developments, or to watch garbage trucks trundle past without stopping.

Though the towns have not annexed these hamlets about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh, and their residents cannot vote in municipal elections, they are subject to the towns' land use and zoning rules under what is called extraterritorial jurisdiction. When asked about extending basic services, the towns' officials say they must take care of those within their existing boundaries before taking on new neighborhoods. The county, on the other hand, says that many of its rural constituents do not have the services the enclaves are requesting, and that the problems of these more densely populated areas can be better addressed by towns.

Excluding heavily minority areas from town boundaries is a common but little examined practice, particularly in small towns in the South, civil rights advocates and geographers say. With the U.S. Open beginning on June 16 on the Pinehurst No. 2 golf course, residents of the three black neighborhoods and their advocates are making a concerted effort for the first time to win more services, holding news conferences and giving tours. Historically, they are the very people who provided much of the labor that built the hotels in the Sandhills, as the area is known, tended the greens at the golf courses or worked on the all-black crew of caddies, long since replaced by electric carts."

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/national/07pinehurst.html?

[ken-in-seattle]

1. Jesse Helms would be proud.

Also if one looks at political maps in the eastern half of the State, the exclusion of historicly black voters, while not as complete as it was in the 70's, is still very obvious.
I am originally from Fayetteville NC, the town on the other side of Ft. Bragg from the area in the map. I find it interesting that the article does not mention Ft. Bragg as part of the equation. The north side of the base is mostly drop zones and artillery ranges but there is a pretty good sized group of officers that live in the golf communities and fill the local theofascist churches.

http://mooregisweb.moorecountync.gov/website/query/viewer.htm
check out moore county for gerrymandering of even precinct boundaries.