In principle, primary explanations for the continuing persistence of African American-White residential segregation include residents ' preferences for neighborhood racial composition (African American self-segregation and White’s low tolerance of African Americans within predominantly White communities), housing market discrimination, and differences in socioeconomic status.
African Americans may prefer to live in African American neighborhoods, either because they administer common preferences for municipal amenities or simply because they enjoy the company of other African Americans and feel more welcome and complacent in predominantly African American communities. When ranking neighborhoods, African American respondents are most likely to select the integrated neighborhood (50 percent black and 50 percent white) as their first choice. When asked open-ended questions about why they would avoid White neighborhoods, many African Americans cite fear of White hostility and concerns about being ignored, harassed, or patronized by their neighbors, rather than a preference for living near other African American households (Krysan, Farley, Ihlanfeldt, & Scafidi, 2002). Fear, exclusion, and a sense of unwelcomeness African Americans receive …show more content…
The relationship between affordability and residential location is intuitively evident; Whites have higher average incomes than African Americans and therefore, are more likely to be able to buy and rent property in more affluent neighborhoods. In the postindustrial economy that emanated after 1973, labor unions wilted, the middle class divided, income inequality increased, and poverty spread. This new stratification between people was accomplished by a growing spatial separation between them. The stagnation of income proved to be remarkably widespread, and inequality rose not only for minorities- African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians- but also for non-Hispanic Whites (Danziger & Gottschalk, 1995; Levy, 1995; Morris, 1994). The continuation of racial segregation consequently leads to the spatial centralization of poverty which was particularly distressing for the African American community. Abnormal amounts of income inequality combined with high levels of racial or ethnic segregation resulted in geographically centered poverty to be localized in small, densely settled, racially compatible areas. As racial segregation increases; decreasing incomes, increasing inequality, increasing class segregation, and increasing immigration are more strongly translated into