Racial Segregation and Racial Change in American Suburbs, 1970-1980

Black migration to American suburbs accelerated in the 1970-80 period, increasing the proportion black in the suburban ring in all four major geographic regions of the country. The evidence presented here demonstrates that this process followed well-established patterns of segregation: in most SMSAs, the black population in 1980 was about as unequally distributed among suburbs as it had been in 1970. In the North, blacks moved disproportionately into communities with high initial black concentrations, while the majority of white suburbs gained very few black residents. In the South, in contrast, there were many cases of displacement, that is, black suburbs experienced declining black concentration. Finally, multivariate analysis of predictors of racial change in the North shows that an increase in the proportion of blacks has been significantly associated with high population density, proximity to the central city, residential instability, weak property tax base, and high tax rates.