The Racial Geography of St. Louis Evictions

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16: Race, Neighborhoods, Institutions

Abstract

St. Louis is a racially divided city guided by Delmar Blvd. Known colloquially as the “Delmar Divide,” Black residents are segregated North, white residents South, and a racial “transition” area emerges as a buffer between these two areas. This study uses a novel data source that includes complete eviction filing data for St. Louis city and county, scraped from the Missouri Courts website for the years 2016 to 2023. We use the novel data set and St. Louis’ racialized landscape to understand if evictions are non-random in their distribution in such a way that eviction emerges as a relevant tool that reinforces the racial divisions of the city and county. Our analyses will first examine whether the historic brightness of racial residential boundaries in St. Louis exerts an independent effect on where and how evictions emerge across the city and county. Second, the time period we are investigating provides an opportunity to examine eviction in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and, more specifically, the federal eviction moratorium. Based on the hierarchy of race and space in St. Louis, we anticipate that there will be disparate rates of eviction rebound. In sum, by providing a “thicker” description of eviction dynamics for a single metropolitan area, we aim to contribute to an emerging literature that generally focuses on a nationwide scale and scope. Our study will employ well-known mechanisms of racial residential stratification, such as patterns of white flight and avoidance, to provide further insights into the broader relationships between eviction, neighborhoods, and neighborhood change.

Authors

• Samuel Hoon Kye, Washington University-St. Louis

• Anne Kaye Brown, Washington University in St. Louis

• Yi Wang, Washington University in St. Louis