Housing, Neighborhoods, and Race Relations: Recent Survey Evidence

This essay looks at the various uses which have been made of public opinion data in explaining and predicting patterns of racial residential segregation. Public opinion is central to understanding the process of housing discrimination because housing market behavior is difficult to monitor and police in any official or bureaucratic fashion. Current poll results show that racial attitudes or preferences for segregated neighborhoods by whites (or by blacks) are not the central stumbling blocks in desegregating American neighborhoods. Rather, shifts in the nature of the housing market in an area reflect responses to a broader, more complex set of neighborhood processes. Factors causing neighborhood change vary greatly in their effects depending on the kind of neighborhood "at risk" and the amount of integration which is likely to occur. Simple calculations of the future of integrated neighborhoods or the amount of segregation due to preferences are in error unless they take these complexities into account.