Not Getting Their Money’s Worth

Abstract

Previous research has established that racial/ethnic residential inequalities in the United States are due to a combination of resource disadvantage and discrimination. This article builds upon past work by using a new dependent variable (census tract median housing value), examining the effects of wealth, and including interactions between race/ethnicity and resources. The authors find that the Black-White gap in neighborhood quality is explained by the combination of Blacks' relative disadvantage in resources and the smaller benefits they gain from having those resources. In contrast, Latinos who are not recent immigrants are similar to Whites in both neighborhood quality and their ability to translate resources into residential quality.

Ethnicity and neighbourhood attainment in England and Wales: A study of second generations' spatial integration

“…Empirical research testing models of spatial integration often finds, first, that ethnic inequalities in neighbourhood attainment remain after cultural and socio-economic resources have been taken into consideration and, second, that the effect of these resources on neighbourhood attainment vary considerably by ethnic group and by neighbourhood outcome. Studies have pointed, for example, to models of "classic" and "strong" place stratification for Black Africans in the United States, when studying access to wealthier areas Woldoff, 2008;Woldoff & Ovadia, 2009). The "weak" version of this model was also observed, but mainly when the dependent variable is white concentration Crowder et al, 2006;South, Crowder, & Pais, 2008).…”

“…Earlier in the text, I argued that in order to identify ethnic inequalities in neighbourhood attainment, individual and household characteristics should be taken into consideration. This research includes not only commonly used variables (age, education, social class, civil status, and presence of children in the household) and socio-economic resources available to individuals during their childhood or early youth (see also Woldoff, 2008;Woldoff & Ovadia, 2009) but also a crucial predictor of neighbourhood attainment: the characteristics of childhood or "origin" neighbourhoods (also recently incorporated in many FIGURE 1 Models of neighbourhood attainment studies, both in the United States, e.g., Swisher, Kuhl, & Chavez, 2013, Sharkey, 2012, South, Huang, Spring, & Crowder, 2016, McDowell, Rootham, & Hardgrove, 2014, and in Europe, e.g., McAvay, 2018, van Ham et al, 2014. Knowing the characteristics of origin neighbourhoods is central to neighbourhood attainment studies because there is a strong relationship between the types of neighbourhoods individuals live in at different points in their lives (see South et al, 2016 who summarise key mechanisms).…”

What Explains Neighborhood Sorting by Income and Race?

“…The success or failure of related policies will hinge on understanding precisely which non-pecuniary factors matter the most in determining neighborhood choices. The preferred policy might be very different depending on whether neighborhood The nearest related results on wealth of which we are aware are in Woldoff and Ovadia (2009), Crowder et al (2006), and Freeman (2000), and the nearest related results on stated-race preferences are in Ihlanfeldt and Scafidi (2002) and Vigdor (2003). Bayer et al (2014) is also related, but focused more on racial segregation than neighborhood quality.…”

Race matters (even more than you already think): Racism, housing, and the limits ofThe Color of Law

“…Strikingly, Black households earning more than $100,000 per year reside in neighborhoods more disadvantaged than those occupied by White households earning less than $30,000 (Sharkey, 2014). In essence, Black families are unable to convert income gains (from market access) into residential quality (see, for example, Woldoff & Ovadia, 2009). Thus in the face of the racist theory of value, Black neighborhoods-constituted by "colored" property-continue to struggle with low property values and the myriad neighborhood disadvantages that result, 25 including a continuation of (modern-day) redlining coupled with inflated property tax assessments (Avenancio-Leon & Howard, 2020).…”