Does School Policy Affect Housing Choices? Evidence From the End of Desegregation in Charlotte–Mecklenburg

Abstract

We examine whether the legal decision to grant unitary status to the Charlotte–Mecklenburg school district, which led to the end of race-conscious student assignment policies, increased the probability that families with children enrolled in the district would move to neighborhoods with a greater proportion of student residents of the same race as their own children. Motivated by the rich but inconclusive literature on the consequences of educational and residential segregation, we make use of a natural policy experiment—a judicial decision to end court-ordered busing—to estimate the causal impacts of this policy shift on household residential decisions. We find that, for those who moved, the legal decision made White families with children in the Charlotte–Mecklenburg Schools substantially more likely than they were during desegregation to move to a neighborhood with a greater proportion of White residents than their own neighborhood.

The Disintegration of Memphis-Shelby County, Tennessee: School District Secession and Local Control in the 21st Century

“…Since education is a key commodity, political leaders of homogeneous suburban communities work to maintain exclusionary boundaries in the hopes of attracting new residents (Buendía & Humbert-Fisk, 2015). While comprehensive school desegregation plans that de-emphasize urban-suburban boundaries can mitigate white flight (Green, 1985; Orfield, 2001; Orfield & Frankenberg, 2014), a recent causal study of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, found that once such plans end, white families are considerably more inclined to move to a neighborhood (and school) with higher shares of other whites (Liebowitz & Page, 2014). In fragmented metropolitan areas with numerous school districts, the boundary lines that separate central city districts from multiple suburban ones partly explain high levels of school segregation between districts (Bischoff, 2008; Fiel, 2013, 2015; Frankenberg, 2009; Reardon, Yun, & Eitle, 2000).…”

School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg *

“…Weinstein (2011) and Liebowitz and Page (2012) study neighborhood change in Charlotte following the end of busing. Weinstein (2011) finds that a 10 percentage point increase in the percent black of an assigned elementary school led to a 0.4 percentage point change in the percent minority of the neighborhood five years after busing.…”

Subsidized housing and school segregation: Examining the relationship between federally subsidized affordable housing and racial and economic isolation in schools

“…These school attendance boundary decisions can fuel both school and residential segregation. For example, if a school district zones a subsidized housing property to a racially isolated and/or low-income school, these decisions can worsen not only school segregation, but also fuel segregation in neighborhoods around affordable housing properties, as white and middle-class families often seek to avoid housing near such schools (Holme, 2002;Lareau & Goyette, 2014;Liebowitz & Page, 2014…”