Leaving the Old Neighborhood: Shifting Spatial Decisions by Black Home Buyers and Their Implications for Black Urban Middle Neighborhoods in Legacy Cities

Homebuying by African American households in the United States dropped sharply after the foreclosure crisis but has rebounded since 2013. As Black homebuyers have returned strongly to the homebuying market, however, their spatial decisions have shifted significantly. Using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for a cluster of large legacy cities, we found that in comparison to earlier periods, recent Black homebuyers are significantly more likely today to be buying homes in suburban rather than central-city locations and less likely to buy in predominantly African American rather than racially mixed census tracts within central cities. These preference shifts have particularly problematic implications for the predominantly Black middle-income neighborhoods that emerged in these cities in the 1960s and 1970s. Building on previous research that has documented a significant decline in socioeconomic and housing market conditions in those neighborhoods since 2000, we suggest that these shifts in homebuying patterns, although not causing those declines and arguably reflecting rational decisions by homebuyers, nonetheless represent an existential threat to these neighborhoods’ viability. To succeed in stabilizing or reviving these neighborhoods, efforts by public agencies or community organizations must address the reasons for their loss of homebuyers.