Racial segregation has excluded blacks and other
minorities from neighborhoods that offer high-quality
housing, schools, and other public services and has
deprived predominantly minority neighborhoods
of essential public services and private investments.
Today, even middle-class minority neighborhoods
have lower house price appreciation, fewer neighborhood
amenities, lower-performing schools, and
higher crime rates than white neighborhoods with
comparable income levels (Pattillo-McCoy 1999;
Pattillo 2005). For example, Prince George’s County,
Maryland, the most affluent African American community
in the nation, lacks the department stores, sitdown
restaurants, specialty stores, and other amenities
typical of comparable white communities (Cashin
2004).
Lenders have been less willing to invest in predominantly
minority communities (Oliver and Shapiro
1997) or have offered predatory loans and loan terms
that strip wealth from minority homeowners rather
than helping them build wealth (Calem, Gillen, and
Wachter 2004; Engel and McCoy 2008; HUD 2000).
Consequently, house values—and property tax revenues—typically
lag in predominantly black communities,
limiting the capacity of local government to
deliver high-quality public services. And public-sector
agencies have a history of neglecting or underserving
minority communities. Again, the Prince George’s
County example is instructive. Despite its overall affluence,
the county’s schools are struggling, facing funding
shortfalls, low achievement levels, and problems
attracting and retaining qualified teachers and administrators
(Cashin 2004).
Finally, middle-class minority neighborhoods are
more vulnerable to social disorder and distress than
comparable white neighborhoods, both because of
their proximity to poorer neighborhoods and because
they lack financial resources (Pattillo 2005). Some
research suggests that, even after controlling for
income levels, majority-black communities suffer
from higher crime rates than predominantly white
communities