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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.
Cheap is relative. In the really bad neighborhoods of St. Louis you're looking at much less than that for a house, maybe $30k-$100k.
Other reasons I can think of:
Some people don't mind it as much if they're from the neighborhood. I worked with a girl who grew up in the hood and still lived and there and she said that people have each others backs. You might get shot but it's going to be somebody from another street, not your street. That doesn't sound very comforting to me but I guess it's different if you grew up that way.
A lot of these people are on Section 8, which not all landlords accept and can't be used to buy a house. Of the ones who aren't on section 8 directly a lot live with a girlfriend/mom/grandma who is so they aren't mobile.
Black people are only 13% of the population so there can't be many of them everywhere.
Columbus is a college town, it's not going to be comparable to other small towns or to a big city like Indianapolis. There are more Asians than blacks there which is definitely not true of St. Louis.
Well, I'm also wondering why immigrants don't seem to go to these suburbs. I imagine a hard-working Hispanic immigrant working a decent trade could afford these places, not to mention skilled immigrants. Yet they don't seem to want to move there...
Maybe you're thinking of Bloomington, but Columbus is not a college town. Only 3% of its population is enrolled in undergraduate studies, which is pretty close to the base rate for everywhere. By comparison, true college towns like Bloomington are 30+ percent enrolled in undergraduate studies.
Suburbs in places that get lots of immigrants(eg, Texas) have lots of immigrants. Suburbs in places that get few immigrants(eg, Wisconsin) have no immigrants.
There’s certainly heavily Hispanic neighborhoods with a similar income level to nearby white neighborhoods, but that’s because of wanting to have the same first language as the neighbors.
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Yeah, I derped and mixed it up with Bloomington
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