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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.
I'll start with the less loaded question, immigrants are attracted to areas with a lot of economic growth because they want to land their dream job. In the midwest there's no construction boom for working class immigrants to work in. There's no flood of nouveau rich craving exotic restaurants. There are no high paying engineering jobs to attract high skill immigrants.
Basically to an immigrant the midwest is bad weather, a foreign language, and limited job prospects. There are plenty of other cities on earth.
Now for the more controversial section.
"Nonwhite" isn't the relevant metric. Columbus, IN is only 2.1% black. 12.5% asian in 2020. 5.6% asian in 2010. Asians don't drive down housing prices in general and their increasing numbers imply that there are white collar jobs hiring in the area.
Poor blacks don't cease to be poor by moving out to the exurbs. They just get to be poor with long commutes.
Those inner city neighborhoods have a lot going for them. Plenty of infrastructure. Many social services. Close to jobs. They're highly desirable apart from the demographics.
Partly. Nonblacks have to choose between pricing them out or moving farther away.
Gentrification involves various programs to move the poor blacks out of inner cities to blue collar suburbs. Liberal whites move in to the newly vacant areas. Blue collar suburbs get stuck with crime and race riots. The residents then flee to more distant exurbs.
A good example is Ferguson, MI. 70% white in 1990, 70% black now. There were serious riots in 2014.
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