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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.
This is from my own majority-minority town, and its majority-white suburbs, my general impression.
Short answer? They are, but the minute they hit critical mass, and it's a relatively low percentage of the population, the pattern begins anew.
I'll tell a short story that is a few different stories sort of rolled into one. Single mother of two moves out of the east side (black ghetto) to the township (working class whites) so that her boys won't fall in with the "bad crowd" at the 95% black city schools. Now her boys are the "bad crowd", years behind in their schooling, with connections and culture formed by the 'hood (which is why their mom is trying to get them out). Then the mother's sister gets out of jail and moves in with her, bringing along her boyfriend (gang member) and his friends (ditto). Now there's six cars parked on the lawn of a single-family home every day, random gang members wandering the neighborhood, and houses start getting broken into. The boys are getting into fights at school. The old couple whose house was broken into moves out. The next year, two white families leave after their kids get mugged for their phones by "youths". Single mother's best friend moves into one of the empty houses with her boyfriend and six children. The block is now 20% black by house count, but higher than that by population. All the houses are now getting broken into, sheds, garages etc. Bars are appearing on windows. Fences go up. Lawns are less cared for. Then someone who doesn't live there gets shot on the block. Everyone non-black with kids leaves. Housing prices plummet, making it affordable to more people from the east side, who follow on to get into the better neighborhood that isn't there anymore, and the better schools that also are dying fast. In a decade, there's one or two of the original inhabitants of the block left, people too poor or old to move. Surrounding neighborhoods avoid it and start looking for other housing options, further away from the dysfunction. This drives down house prices, increasing the attractiveness to those fleeing bad neighborhoods in the city.
In twenty years, the ghetto moves six miles. Eventually, if you get far enough from the city, you get to neighborhoods rural, pricey or hispanic enough to resist this somewhat, and a sort of stasis sets in. The expanding "donut" of poor, crime-ridden, primarily minority neighborhoods eventually leaves a hollowed-out urban core which in some cases is re-developed (gentrification). This gives us patterns like Detroit where you drive from the nice neighborhoods through the war zones to get to the clean, hipster downtown section.
Getting strong “left behind in Rosedale” vibes from this comment
Like I said, it's a composite story. Not all of that happened in one neighborhood or to one person. It's just the pattern over time, all perfectly understandable and done with the best intentions the people involved can manage.
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