Diagnosing the True Pathology of Moynihans Crisis: Urban Flight and the Urban Ghettoization of Blacks

Alex Treiger

A range of academic disciplines, from anthropology and sociology to economics and political science, have attempted to illuminate the explanatory causes of contemporary black-white disparities in the United States. Rejecting assertions that innate psychosocial traits or culture is to blame, this paper identifies the legacy of widespread and systematic urban-suburban residential segregation as the cornerstone of black underachievement. More specifically, the phenomenon of urban flight the process whereby whites moved from cities to metropolitan suburbs combined with discriminatory housing policies produces racially polarized urban environments. Today, the average metropolitan space is made up of an almost exclusively minority central city encircled by white suburbs. In impoverishing and isolating blacks, ghettoization has had a profoundly negative impact on the socioeconomic fabric of black communities. This paper explores the trajectory of residential segregation over the last century as well as its causes and consequences.

INTRODUCTION

Half a century after the Civil Rights Movement, a host of economic and social indicators suggest that black aspirations for economic and social progress have gone largely unrealized.i The root causes of black underachievement have received significant attention from a plethora of academic disciplines. Many of these claims, approaching the issue from an implicitly ethnocentric perspective, argue that psychosocial factors are to blame; Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1965) located the unconcealable crisis of black underachievement in a tangle of pathology the perpetuating cycle of divorce, illegitimacy, female-headed families, and fatherlessness which breeds an oppositional culture, while Oscar Lewis (1969) elucidated the culture of poverty, a distinct set of values and attitudes that normalize the poverty experience. Although the depth and breadth of black inequality suggests that this crisis involves a constellation of underlying factors, theories like Moynihans tangle of pathology or Lewiss culture of poverty are difficult to take seriously since they fail to account for the role of economic forces, state institutions and social norms in minority marginalization. This paper rejects these theories and instead argues that pervasive segregation is the source of black underachievement. Urban-suburban residential segregation produced by the migration of middle-class whites from urban centers to the suburbs during the Post-War Era ghettoized blacks in central cities. This pattern of metropolitan spatial organization was driven by stereotypes and prejudices, supported by major economic institutions and the federal government, and legitimized by cultural institutions. In concentrating and isolating blacks, ghettoization had a profoundly negative impact on the socioeconomic fabric of black

communities. Today, the average metropolitan environment is made up of a poor, almost exclusively minority central city encircled by affluent, white suburbs. This paper links contemporary black underachievement to the exodus of whites from city centers during the Post-War Era. The next section describes the trajectory of residential segregation. Section II explores the phenomenon of urban flight and the various forces behind racial residential segregation. Section III discusses the negative educational, economic, health and social outcomes associated with black urban ghettoization. Section IV summarizes the findings of this paper and then argues that appreciating the relationship between residential segregation and black underachievement is essential when designing policies aimed at eliminating racial disparities.

I. THE EVOLUTION OF METROPOLITAN RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION

Residential segregation occurs when the housing arrangement of population groups gives rise to particularly homogenous neighborhoods, isolating one group from the others (Duncan 1955; Denton 1993; Iceland 2004). As quantitative analysis began to play an increasingly important role in the policymaking process, the definition of residential segregation came to denote the degree to which two or more groups live separately from one another within a general location (Denton 1988). This ratio is captured by the index of dissimilarity which measures the evenness, or the differential distribution of two groups within a specified geographic area; a low index of dissimilarity (high evenness) occurs when segregation is minimal and group intermixing is high while a large index of dissimilarity (low evenness) occurs when the two groups live in distinct areas (Duncan 1955; Iceland 2004; Denton 1988). In a more abstract

context, the degree of residential segregation as measured by the index of dissimilarity represents the demographic shifts that would be required to achieve an even distribution of races across neighborhoods (Clark 1986; Iceland 2004).ii Most American cities exhibit extreme levels of segregation. At the turn of the millennium, the average US metropolitan area had an index of dissimilarity of 64 percent (Iceland 2007).iii That is, achieving racial balance in most American cities required nearly twothirds of the black population to change residence (Iceland 2007). Contrary to popular belief, residential segregation by race did not begin to occur until the 1920s. In the late 19th and early 20th century, discrimination against blacks, especially in the South, was intense and often violent but the preindustrial political economy was not conducive to segregated patterns of urban spatial organization. In Northern cities, blacks were rarely more than 30 percent of the residents in a particular area, and black neighborhoods were not contiguous (Denton 1993). Chicago, for example, in 1860 had a black-white dissimilarity index of 50 percent (Denton 1993). Industrialization, accompanied by massive demographic changes, radically reshaped the contours of the American urban environment and set in motion a precedent of racial segregation. Demand for labor in the North brought both blacks from the South and European migrants, which heightened economic competition, increased the scarcity of social resources and undermined once relaxed race relations (Denton 1993). By 1930 blacks were increasingly isolated from other groups; black isolation in New York City rose from 5 percent in 1900 to 42 percent in 1930 (Denton 1993). Unlike immigrant enclaves where social mobility was the norm, increasing violence and discrimination isolated black neighborhoods (Denton 1993; Lieberson 1980).

Racial residential segregation, well established by the 1930s, exploded during the PostWar Era. Between 1940 and 1960, the population of blacks doubled in most large northern cities while the population of white residents dropped precipitously; for example, Washington D.C., which was a predominantly white city in 1940, was 71 percent black by 1970 (Denton 1993). Metropolitan segregation peaked sometime between 1960-1970. During this period, blacks in almost every major city were extremely segregated (Wilcox 1977). In fact, in a survey of 237 metropolitan areas by Wilcox (1977) the average level of black-white segregation in 1970 was above 70 percent; Denton found it to be 83 percent in the 29 largest urban areas (Denton 1987). The status quo in 1980 was nearly identical to that of 1970. At the time, 72 percent of blacks lived in central cities compared to 33 percent of metropolitan whites (Denton 1987). Nevertheless, residential segregation has slowly decreased since 1970. On average, the dissimilarity index of segregation across metropolitan areas declined from 73 percent in 1980 to 64 percent in 2000 (Iceland 2007). Yet these improvements are misleading since the decreasing isolation of urban blacks can be attributed to an increasing Asian and Latino presence in metropolitan areas (Iceland 2004). Moreover, residential inequality along race has remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s (Iceland 2007). Ultimately, 80 percent of residents in todays poor urban areas are minorities - blacks constitute 50 percent of this population (Iceland 2004).

II. THE PROCESS AND CAUSES OF URBAN FLIGHT

Contrary to the Supreme Courts exclamation in Miliken v. Bradley that the causes of racial segregation were unknowable, the literature has clearly indentified a variety of forces that

contributed to black-white segregation.iv Certainly, a complex of forces like information asymmetries, attitudes and preferences, and neighborhood income influenced residential patterns (Leven 1976; Clark 1978). Yet the migration of whites from city centers to the suburbs between 1940-1970 is most responsible for dramatically transforming urban residential patterns and miring blacks in poverty (Boustan 2010; Denton 1993). So massive was this exodus that by 1980, only a third of metropolitan whites lived in urban areas (Boustan 2010). Increasingly, urban blacks were left behind in central cities. Detroit serves as an illustrative example of this phenomenon: in 1970 about 45 percent of the central citys 1.5 million residents were black but only 4 percent of the 2.5 million suburban residents were black (Farley 1978). White flight and the modern ghettoization of blacks during the Post-War Era was driven by profound social, demographic and economic changes, white preferences to avoid integration and discriminatory housing policies that precluded blacks from participating in suburbanization. Social and economic transformations. Changes in transportation, lending practices and social norms during the economic boom of the 1950s made suburbanization an attractive lifestyle for millions of Americans (Farley 1978; Clark 1986; Denton 1993). The baby boom generated massive demand for housing which was met by building on inexpensive land outside of cities. Having a white picket fence and spacious yard quickly came to embody the American Dream. As middle-class whites left cities, the growing income gap between cities and suburbs pushed any remaining urban middle-class whites to leave as well. Boustan (2007) estimates that this positive feedback process explains 20-30 percent of urban population loss between 1940 and 2000. Investments in national infrastructure such as the National Interstate Defense Highway Act in 1956, by making urban-suburban commuting a possibility, spurred economic growth in these decentralized spaces (Baum-Snow 2007). Moreover, generous mortgage and loan policies by the

Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Veterans Administration and Homeowners Loan Corporation (HOLC) opened up homeownership to millions of Americans (Denton 1993). The explosion of home construction in suburbs, increasing affordability of homeownership, and ease of travel to and from central cities accelerated the decline of whites in cities. White preferences. White departure from urban centers has been repeatedly connected to whites aversion to living with blacks and their desire to avoid integration (Farley 1978; Clark 1986; Denton 1993). Demand for a particular neighborhood location, like any other consumer good, is greatly affected by the preferences of the potential purchaser. Studies found that while blacks overwhelmingly desired evenly distributed residential patterns, whites sought homogenous neighborhoods (Farley 1978; Clark 1986). Analyzing the effect of black migration into cities on urban flight, Boustan (2010) concluded that, on average, every black arrival in a Northern city spurred 2.7 white departures. Furthermore, Boustan (2010) found that city districts that underwent court-order desegregation saw a noticeable reduction in white residents. Farley (1978) in studying racial preferences in Detroit found that a 70 to 30 black-white neighborhood ratio was the tipping point which precipitated white flight. Negative stereotypes, growing urban poverty and crime, and the desire to avoid school desegregation clearly fueled some whites decision to relocate to the suburbs. Discriminatory housing practices. The very same federal agencies and private partners that were instrumental to white home ownership erected numerous barriers to prevent blacks from suburbanizing (Krivo 2004; Ross 2005). Practices such as restrictive covenants and redlining as well as discriminatory zoning policies were considered legally and social legitimate. Legal until 1948, restrictive covenants stymied black homeownership for nearly a century and contributed to the early ghettoization of blacks (Krivo 2004). Nevertheless discrimination against

blacks remained pervasive and many whites refused to sell or rent property to blacks. Redlining, the practice of denying, limiting or charging more for financial services along the lines of race, was institutionalized by the HOLC in 1934 and soon after became the standard for commercial banks (Denton 1993). Mortgage-lending discrimination denied millions of blacks the opportunity to become homeowners, an increasingly important source of wealth. Additionally, racial steering by brokers guided blacks into already all-black or low-income areas (Krivo 2004; Ross 2005). Housing discrimination only intensified the growing white-black income gap. Even today, while legislation prohibits most forms of housing discrimination, private acts as well public policies such as zoning regulations have discriminatory undertones aimed at preserving the status quo.

III. THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF BLACK GHETTOIZATION

The spatial segregation of blacks in city centers exacerbated the economic shocks of the 1970s and 80s. Recessions and the transformation of the labor market from a manufacturing to service economy disproportionately hurt urban blacks. Moreover, the decline of urban whites and the general decentralization of metropolitan areas resulted in commercial collapse and the erosion of the tax base in urban centers. Thus, depopulation and deindustrialization spurred an irreversible cycle of poverty and urban decline.v Poverty, of course, does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it greatly affects the socioeconomic wellbeing of communities. This section briefly examines the consequences of residential segregation on educational achievement, economic opportunities, health outcomes and social problems in order to fully appreciate the relationship between urban flight and black underachievement.

Segregation and educational achievement. Despite the fact that Brown v. Board of Education stands as a hallowed icon of American equality, its ruling has largely failed to achieve long-term school integration.vi In fact, the percentage of black students in intensely segregated schools is higher today than the 1970s (Orfield 2004). Due, in part, to the Supreme Courts ruling in Miliken v Bradley, which insulated suburbs from court-order desegregation orders, black student exposure to whites has declined quite rapidly since the 1980s (Rivkin 1994).vii Intensely segregated public education where the population is 90 to 100 percent nonwhite - is now the norm for many urban minority students (Orfield 2009). In 2006, while less than 1 percent of whites attended these schools, 38.5 percent of blacks two in every five black students found themselves at an intensely segregated school (Orfield 2009). These urban schools have less funding and lower quality educators than suburban schools and yet they are tasked with educating low achieving peer groups in the context of health and nutrition problems, residential instability, high exposure to crime and gangs, and other negative conditions that affect academic performance. Increasingly, the 44 percent of nonwhite students are guided into dropout factories, where more than half will fail to graduate and nearly all will be ill prepared to participate in the modern economy (Orfield 2009). Spatial mismatch and economic opportunity. The spatial isolation of blacks in poor metropolitan areas increases the distance between black job candidates and locations of employment, thereby limiting black opportunities for economic advancement and integration. ORegan (1997) found that exposure to whites and exposure to poverty were both highly correlated to employment outcomes, since both reduced the quantity and quality of informal networks and knowledge of job opportunities. In fact, ORegan (1997) found that between 30 and 35 percent of the employment gap between black and white youth could be explained by the

isolation of blacks, underscoring the importance of informal networks and spatial accessibility. Furthermore, the shift from an economy based on manufacturing to service hurt low-skilled black workers by relocating high-paying entry-level positions to the suburbs. Also, the inability of blacks to acquire the level of training and education needed to compete in the modern economy has led to a skills mismatch (Denton 1993; Cutler 1997; Williams 2001). As a result, many urban black men have dropped out of the labor market completely and looked to illicit activities for income (Holzer 2009). Unemployment for black men has risen consistently between 1964 and 1981 (Holzer 2009). These declines are greatest for young (16-24 years old) black men, of which almost half are unemployed (Holzer 2009). Residential segregation therefore affects black employment opportunities because it eliminates access to informal networks, produces spatial mismatch and places blacks at a skills disadvantage. Health outcomes and poverty. Unsurprisingly, racial health disparities can be traced to segregation and socioeconomic status. Relative to whites, blacks have an elevated death rate for eight of the ten leading causes of death; moreover, the black-white ratio for these diseases was actually worse in 1990 than in 1950 (Williams 2001). Individuals in areas of concentrated poverty not only have less access to medical care, health promoting resources and information, but they also face psychosocial constraints and material hardships which are associated with stress, depression, medical conditions such as hypertension and heart disease, and unhealthy behaviors (Geronimus 2000; Marmot 2006). As a result, racial health disparities take on geographical dimensions (Williams 2001). For example, traveling from downtown Washington D.C. to Montgomery County, Maryland, an affluent suburb, life expectancy rises about a year and half for each mile traveled; on average, a resident of Washington D.C. has a life expectancy of 57 while a resident of Montgomery Country will live to be 76.7 years old (Marmot 2006).

Ghettoization and social decay. Often mistaken as the foundation of black underachievement, social problems have overwhelmed urban black communities (Crane 1991). Various statistics speak loudly to the relationship between ghettoization and social disruption: more than a third of all young black men are now incarcerated, on parole or on probation at any one point in time; only about 20 percent of black youth grow up in two-parent households; and teen pregnancy is significantly higher in poor urban areas (Holzer 1991; Cutler 1997). Surveying a variety of these economic and social outcomes using regression analysis, Cutler (1997) found that a one standard deviation reduction in segregation eliminated one-third of the outcome differential between whites and blacks. Instead of being the source of racial disparities, social problems experienced by blacks are the predictable outcome of the economic and social dislocation caused by urban flight.

IV. CONCLUSION

Articulating the complexities and interrelated nature of these policy problems is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, this paper argues that Moynihan and others have misidentified sociological factors as underlying black underachievement. It is readily apparent that the problems affecting urban blacks like low educational achievement, high crime and teenage pregnancy rates, poor health outcomes and lack of employment opportunities are the result of racial residential segregation. Thus, racially restrictive suburbanization, not culture, is the true pathology afflicting urban blacks. Understanding the relationship between urban-suburban patterns of segregation, poverty and racial disparities is necessary when designing effective municipal, state and federal urban

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poverty alleviation interventions. Approaches that focus on the psychosocial nature of black poverty such as encouraging marriage or forcing welfare recipients to work will produce little change. Rather, policymakers must confront the pervasive and persistent pattern of racial residential segregation in order to spur black progress, eliminate racial disparities, and revitalize Americas cities.

Notes
Almost any marker of socioeconomic wellbeing reveals the magnitude of black underachievement. The unemployment of blacks is currently 16.2 percent almost double that of whites, and well above the national average. (See Bureau of Labor Statistics. (March 2011) Employment Status of the Civilian Population by Race, Sex, and Age. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm. Accessed March 5, 2011). Black students are the least likely of any racial group to make it from their freshman year of high school to graduation day (see Rampell, Catherine. Graduation Rates by State and Race. New York Times Jun. 2010. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/graduation-rates-by-state-and-race/. Accessed March 5, 2011). Almost 20 percent of all black households are female headed higher than any other group (see Population Reference Bureau. (2011) Diversity, Poverty Characterize Female-Headed Houselholds.http://www.prb.org/Articles/2003/DiversityPovertyCharacterizeFemaleHeadedHo useholds.aspx. Accessed March 2, 2011). A little over 40 percent of the current prison population is black. That is, one in every nine black men is incarcerated (see Federal Bureau of Prisons. (January 2011) Inmate Breakdown. http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp#2. Accessed March 5, 2011). ii The descriptive power of the index of dissimilarity has made it the primary methodology to measure residential segregation since it was first posited by Duncan and Duncan in the 1950s (Denton 1987). There are, however, limitations inherent to the index of dissimilarity model, namely that it cannot account for spatial characteristics. This has lead to a number of new measures. Denton and Masseys model, considered by many to be the most holistic model, measures residential segregation along five distinct dimensions: (1) unevenness; (2) clustering; (3) concentration; (4) isolation; and (5) centralization (Denton 1987). More recently, the increasing multicultural character of the United States has led some to measure the relative diversity of the area to gauge the degree of residential segregation (Iceland 2004). Nevertheless, the index of dissimilarity will serve as the key metric throughout this paper. iii Generally, a dissimilarity index value above .60 is thought to represent extremely high segregation (Iceland 2004). iv Miliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974). v Many describe urban collapse as a process of urban decay, in which the presence of a few dilapidated houses in a neighborhood, by reducing the incentive of others to invest in residential
i

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upkeep, catalyzes a cycle of disinvestment and decay. Abandoned houses attract the destitute and become a site for drugs, crime, delinquency and other social problems (Leven 1976; Denton 1993). v Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 347 U.S. 483 (1954). vi Supra note 3.

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