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Notes -
Conventional wisdom is that whites and Asians in the US insulate themselves from inner city blacks by pricing them out of homes. But in the process of researching where in the Midwest I want to move to, I've found that most Midwest metros have suburbs/exurbs in the eminently affordable $150-250k median home value range and yet remain 90+ percent white. Can anyone help me understand this?
For example, here's a racial dot map of St. Louis and its southern suburbs/exurbs, with some of the individual cities and their white % and median home value labeled. The same pattern exists for most other Midwest metros I've looked at, too. Certainly most metros have some suburbs that are very expensive. In the St. Louis example, that would be the western suburbs (you can tell because of the red Asian dots). But not all the suburbs are expensive like that.
So, why aren't African Americans moving to these cheap white suburbs to get away from the awful inner city black neighborhoods? It's not like these places are full of "white trash" - poverty rates are low and incomes are high compared to outside of metros. Certainly a good many inner city blacks really can't afford a $100k-150k home, but surely enough can that it'd drive these places well down from 90+ percent white?
And what about immigrants - why aren't there substantial numbers of immigrants who move to these places? High-SES Asians tend to move to richer suburbs because they can afford it, but surely many working class immigrants would appreciate being in a cheap white suburb with easy commuting to the city core?
A related question I have is why smaller-tier cities (say, in the 50k-100k population range) tend to be so much more diverse than metro suburbs. There are only 2 cities in the entire country that are >50k population and >90% white (Ankeny, IA and The Villages, FL), yet 90+ percent white suburbs of metros are common.
As one example among many, why is Columbus, IN (pop. 50k, 45 miles south of Indianapolis) 24% nonwhite despite median home values ($185k) that are higher than many of the 90+ percent white suburbs of Indianapolis (e.g., Franklin, Mooresville, Greenfield)? Certainly some black families moved there generations ago and the current inhabitants want to remain near family. But that can't be the whole explanation, because many of these places are substantially foreign-born (e.g., Columbus IN is 15% foreign-born). Surely a newcomer's job prospects are better in a cheaper commutable suburb of Indianapolis than in a more expensive isolated small city like Columbus.
Demographic data for this post come from the Census's 2019 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Housing values are from policymap.com, which uses the 2021 ACS 5-year estimate. Racial dot map is from Dave's Redistricting App.
Perhaps only a few inner city neighborhoods are that bad. That is usually the case
If those areas are cheap, there is probably something wrong with them. Perhaps there are few jobs, or poor transportation options to where the jobs are.
Perhaps your premise is wrong. According to this, there are 1364 homes for sale in areas of St Louis where the current average asking price is under $250K. Of those, 800 are in St Claire County, IL, which is 59.6% White and 29.7% black. Of the places listed on your map that are not in that realtor list, on realtor.com there are 28 current home listings for High Ridge, 10 in Murphy, 22 in Valley Park, 80 in Oakville but only 20 under 250K.
Note also that your map says that the median home value in Arnold is 168K, while the realtor link above says the average asking price is 401K. Some of that might be a difference between mean and median, but perhaps not all of it.
Some are certainly worse than others, but I wager the majority are going to be substantially worse than the sort of suburbs I mentioned, on almost any metric that's universally cared about (e.g., crime, income, jobs, stable families, etc.), and casually browsing ACS data on policymap.com will certainly back that up.
It's possible I'm missing something (and it's one of the reasons I'm here asking), but I haven't been able to find it despite a wealth of ACS data to go off of. And given how social ills tend to correlate with each other, I would expect it to be noticeable somewhere.
A few things:
ACS data on median home values lags present data. The most recently published ACS data is an average of 2016-2021. But the home value increases since then apply across cities, not just to these suburbs. So to the extent these white suburbs have gotten more expensive, so has everywhere else. And even if that wasn't the case (and Zillow's graphs of home values over time indicates it is), it doesn't explain why so few non-whites moved to these cities before the most recent ACS data.
Your source includes only current listings, which may not be representative and/or have small sample sizes.
Zillow data is pretty consistent with ACS data.
I'm sure they are, but your premise was not that they are worse, but rather that they are "awful." That's not the same thing!
Do you have data re jobs?
And, again, if prices are low in those places, that can only be because 1) supply is high; or 2) demand is low. Based on realtor.com listings, I don’t see much evidence of the former, though maybe there is evidence elsewhere. If the latter is true, then those places must be undesirable for some reason.
.>Zillow data is pretty consistent with ACS data
And yet the Zillow current listings are much higher. Is it possible that the Zillow average includes vacant lots and the like?
All they need to be is worse to raise the question of why people don't move out of them when there are affordable alternatives.
These suburbs are within commute distance of major metros. I think it's safe to say there are jobs galore, and I won't believe you if you claim to doubt it.
I agree! That's why I'm asking. But the consistency of this phenomenon across metros seems to demand an explanation beyond some idiosyncrasy of one place.
You're right, and that is curious. While I would expect listings to be a bit more valuable than the median home value, simply because nicer ones are more likely to be for sale, the disparity here is too great to be comfortable with that explanation. But while I don't know enough about that particular market to hazard any guesses, I will say that this is one thing that doesn't seem to generalize to other metros' white suburbs. A few more examples:
Greenfield, Indiana (20 miles east of Indianapolis, 96% white) has a Zillow median value of $244k, there are many homes listed for less than that.
Indianola, Iowa (20 miles south of Des Moines, 95% white) has a Zillow median value of $272k with many homes listed for less than that.
Pretty much all the suburbs of Cincinnati are ~95% white, and there are plenty of non-dilapidated homes for <$250k.
Who said anything about idiosyncrasies of one place? The access to jobs issue could easily be common to all.
Here is another problem: It looks like currently about 72% of whites are homeowners but only 43% of blacks are. The Greater St. Louis area is 77% white and 18% black. So, if my math is correct, one would expect a place that is almost all homeowners -- which I think describes the places highlighted on the map -- to be about 88% white. That is little different than several of the places onthe map, and for others, you are essentially asking, why are these places 95% white instead of 88%? A pretty small discrepancy, perhaps so small that it is not worth wondering about, and one which could easily be explained by the fact that most urban black people dont live in awful neighborhoods.
That doesn't really address the question, it just changes it to "why are whites more likely to be homeowners". It's not straightforwardly obvious to me why Hispanics and blacks would prefer to rent rather than own.
Yes, that is my point: The initial conundrum that you present does not seem to be a conundrum at all, at least based on the initial evidence you presented.
Who says that they prefer to rent? It is hardly surprising that Hispanics and blacks have lower rates of home ownership, given their lower income and lower median age. They would have lower rates of home ownership even if they were equally desirous of owning.
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