Stalled, Reversed, or Accelerated Local Segregation?: Patterns of White racial bifurcation after the U.S. foreclosure crisis

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16. Segregation

Abstract

From suburban to urban neighborhoods, small towns to rural communities, American residential space is diversifying. Still, White Americans remain the most insulated from differently raced neighbors. Unlike all other racial groups, recent data finds that the average White resident in metropolitan America lives a majority White neighborhood—one that is 71% White, a full 13 percentage-points Whiter than the overall US White share. White racial bifurcation from other racial groups remains a dominant pattern in US residential space.

However, American communities often transition from racially integrated to racially dominant and back again over time. Such residential reshuffling can be especially dynamic, rapid, and consequential during times of rapid and systematic residential mobility. One such moment of acute residential reshuffling was during and after the US foreclosure crisis, where the prevailing racial dynamics of a given type of residential space may have deviated, stabilized, or accelerated, thus altering the long-term racial trends of American neighborhoods.

This study examines changing racial dynamics of US residential space from the pre-foreclosure crisis era (1990 – 2007), to the post-crisis era (2008 – 2020). I measure racial change using US Census Bureau decennial counts and novel small area population estimates for the year 2007, which to better observe intercensal racial dynamics. I focus this study on changing White shares given the persistence of White separation in residential space. I assess if post-crisis trends are continuations of pre-crisis racial dynamics, or if residential spaces deviated from their pre-crisis trends toward greater White bifurcation or greater White integration. I find that White residential space saw stability and/or increased White bifurcation, while White integration was common in non-White space, suggesting racial and spatial patterns in racial change after the US foreclosure crisis.

Author

• Alex Mikulas, Rice University