Recent changes in the housing status of blacks in los angeles

In the aftermath of reductions in federal housing assistance programs during the 1980s, many cities are experiencing severe shortages of affordable housing. It is particularly difficult for low income and minority households to find and maintain adequate, low-cost housing. This article describes how Los Angeles has responded to this need through implementation of a particular housing policy and financing strategy. It specifically examines what impacts this program has had in producing affordable housing in the city’s low-income, minority neighborhoods. Recommendations for further public action on housing needs in Los Angeles are also offered.     

Civil rights legislation and the housing status of black americans: Evidence from fair housing audits and segregation indices

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made discrimination against minorities in the sale or rental of housing illegal. Twenty years later the Act’s coverage was expanded and its enforcement mechanisms strengthened in response to pressure from fair housing advocates and evidence of continued segregation and discrimination. Segregation indices and fair housing audits provide measures of the extent and nature of residential segregation and housing discrimination. High levels of residential segregation suggest that housing discrimination exists, and audits give a direct measure of the incidence of discrimination. To date, housing audits consistently show that black auditors encounter discriminatory treatment in the housing search process. Whether the strengthened enforcement mechanisms of the Act will have a substantial impact on housing market discrimination and, in turn, residential segregation, remains to be seen.     

Immigrant Struggles in New Orleans Post-Katrina

Race relations in New Orleans have often been narrowed to Black and white, especially pre-Katrina. According to the 2000 census, the city was about 67% African American, 27% white, 2% Asian, and 3% “Hispanic.” In a city with a deep history of racial tensions between Black and white, other people of color—and especially recent immigrants—often went unmentioned in discussions of city demographics. The city’s world famous culture—whether in the traditions of Mardi Gras Indians and secondline parades, or in music like jazz and bounce—is also famously rooted in specifically African cultures. Even in media coverage of the city post-Katrina, the story of immigrant experiences has remained mostly invisible. When these stories have been told, they have often fit into the old stereotypes of “model minorities” (as in the case of the Vietnamese recovery) or of low-wage workers stealing jobs (as in the case of news reports on the city’s new Latino population). However, the stories of these other New Orleanians offer an important lens through which to view the overall struggle over the city’s recovery. And the work of grassroots activists from these communities, who strived to not only work for justice for their friends and neighbors, but also to build broad multi-racial alliances, provides an inspiring example for people in other cities who are waging similar fights.     

The Legacy of Black Lynching and Contemporary Segregation in the South

Wacquant (2001) and others have argued that social control efforts directed at racial and ethnic minorities frequently shift institutional form and become more nuanced as societies modernize, even as the underlying function persists. This study examines the connection between southern lynching and housing segregation. We argue that legal, political, social and demographic changes in the south made lynching dysfunctional as a means of control. Among other more nuanced control mechanisms, modern housing segregation helped serve as a replacement. We test this proposition by relating historical southern black lynching rates to recent levels of segregation in southern MSAs. We find that an MSA’s historical lynching rate is positively and significantly linked to the MSA’s current segregation levels after accounting for standard determinants of segregation. Thus, segregation does not just occur generally throughout the south, but follows a very particular pattern based on past lynching rates. Our findings add to a growing literature on the legacy of lynching, such as studies examining contemporaneous variation in support for and use of capital punishment.     

Effects of community,family, and education on earnings of black and white men

Summary The primary purpose of this paper was to determine the effect of background on the education and earnings of black and white men.It was largely motivated by a desire to quantify the extent to which past discrimination against Blacks, resulting in lower achievement, inhibits the progress of individuals today in a somewhat more benign environment.It has demonstrated that both community and family background factors are important in determining the levels of education and earnings of black and white men.The community effects for Blacks operate largely through their moving into more integrated neighborhoods, so that many positive community externalities are apparently not available to families in predominantly black middle-class neighborhoods.While the effects of father’s education, city origin, and community income are comparable between Blacks and whites, white men’s education is more affected by number of siblings, family income, and age of 1968 head of household than is black men’s education.The relative sizes of the coefficients of these latter variables are consistent with steeper age-earnings profiles for older white men than older black men and higher prices paid for investing in children by black parents.     

Racial steering by real estate agents: Mechanisms and motives

Data from fair housing audits conducted in Cincinnati (1983–85) and Memphis (1985–87) are analyzed to discern whether and how racial steering occurs. The six real estate firms analyzed here engaged in some sort of steering during at least one-half of the audited transactions, on average. This steering did not limit the number of alternative areas shown to black auditors, nor their geographic concentration. Rarely were black auditors not shown dwellings in predominantly white areas, especially if they requested such. But of all the homes they saw, black auditors were shown significantly smaller fractions in predominantly white areas, and significantly larger fractions in mixed and predominantly black areas. These racial patterns persisted regardless of the geographic definition of area chosen: census block, census tract, school district, or community. In addition, blocks adjacent to the homes shown black auditors had higher percentages of black residents, on average, than those shown to white auditors. White auditors rarely were shown houses in racially mixed areas unless they requested them. Even then, after the requested home was shown the bulk of subsequent showings were located in predominantly white areas. This pattern of showings was buttressed by numerous favorable comments by agents about such predominantly white areas and school districts . . . comments that were rarely given to black auditors. The evidence was fully consistent with only one hypothesis about why real estate agents steer. They steer so as to perpetuate two segregated housing markets buffered by a zone of racially transitional neighborhoods, thereby maximizing housing turnover and agents’ commissions.     

Urban renewal: The case of Buffalo,NY

Scholars of urbanism have long been critical of America’s post-World War II efforts at urban renewal. What is generally less well understood is the theoretical context out of which urban renewal policy arose. This analysis sets forth the key precepts of modernist thinking in city planning as the explanation for urban renewal’s policy miscalculations. Data for Buffalo document the case, with emphasis upon the exclusion of blacks in the redevelopment process. Following three decades of failure, 1950 to 1980, a neighborhoodbased renewal project is now showing promise in meeting the housing needs of inner-city black households.     

Consumer demand by Black Americans

This article investigates the consumption patterns of black Americans for five different commodity groups: food, housing, clothing, health care, and transportation. The black consumer’s demand for these products is hypothesized as describable by the linear expenditure system. The system allows the investigation of changing relative commodity prices and income. The system also establishes a basic consumption bundle as an estimable parameter of the system. The basic bundle allows for changes in composition due to increased product familiarity, habit formation, and emulation by black consumers. Product familiarity and habit-formation play a role in determining the black consumer’s demand for the commodities food, housing, and clothing. This demand is also partially determined by the consumer’s “emulation” of consumption standards established by society in general. The article is not a comparison study of black-white differences in consumer behavior; however, the possible existence of an emulation effect in black consumer behavior suggests an interrelation of black-white consumer welfare which might fruitfully be studied by future researchers.     

What else do unions do?: Race and gender in local 35

Most analyses of the relationship between job segregation and gender wage inequality do not examine the race-specific dimensions of occupational segregation. Using personnel data, we examine the impact of race-gender occupational segregation on occupational grading and wage setting within a service and maintenance union. Our empirical results show that the job grading and wage setting processes significantly favor white men’s jobs and penalize black women’s jobs.     

Assessing black progress: voting and citizenship rights,residency and housing,education

Farley discusses progress US blacks have made in the areas of voting and citizenship rights, residency and housing, and education. A major goal of the civil rights movement was to permit blacks to influence the electoral process in the same manner as whites. Most important in this regard was the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the proportion of southern blacks casting ballots increased sharply since the early 1960s. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 outlawed racial segregation in public accommodations, but by the turn of the century, Jim Crow laws in southern states called for segregation in most public places. Common customs and government policy in the North resulted in similar segregation of blacks from whites. The Montgomery bus boycott and similar protests in dozens of other cities led to enactment of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which proscribed such racial practices. By the late 1960s, blacks in all regions could use the same public accommodations as whites. In most metropolitan areas, de facto racial segregation persisted long after the laws were changed. Supreme Court decisions and local open-housing ordinances supported the right of blacks to live where they could afford. However the major change was the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which outlawed racial discrimination in the sale or rental of most housing units. The separation of blacks from whites did not end in the 1970s. Today, in areas which have large black populations, there are many central city neighborhoods and a few in the suburbs which are either all-black or are becoming exclusively black enclaves. Most other neighborhoods have no more than token black populations. Another major effort of civil rights organizations has been the upgrading of housing quality for blacks. By 1980, only 6% of the homes and apartments occupied by blacks lacked complete plumbing facilities (down from 50% in 1940). Unlike the modest changes in residential segregation, racial differences in housing quality have been greatly reduced. By 1960, black students approached parity with whites in terms of measurable aspects of school facilities. In 1940, young blacks averaged about 3 fewer years of educational attainment than whites; the time is nearing when the years of schooling completed by blacks and whites will be the same. In small and medium-sized cities throughout the country, public schools are generally integrated. However, the situation in the largest metropolitan areas is very different. Today, large public schools are segregated, in large part, because blacks and whites live in separate school districts.     

Black-white housing price differentials: Recent trends and implications

Black-white housing price differentials consistent with racially discriminatory practices are rarely found by the studies that have used post-1970 data. Instead, those studies report price differentials consistent with the theory that whites buy segregation by bidding up the price of housing in certain neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the specifications used in most of these studies have been flawed. Here, a properly specified model is estimated using Annual Housing Survey data, augmented with objective measures of neighborhood conditions, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The price differentials found support the trend found by the improperly specified models. Specifically, various owner bundles cost up to 16 percent more and various renter bundles cost up to 20 percent more in the predominantly white than in the predominantly black submarket. To the extent that residential integration remains one of society’s goals, this trend calls for innovative policies that go beyond enforcement of existing Fair Housing laws.     

Housing Boom,Dutch Disease,and the Decline in China's Manufacturing Exports

Drawing on Dutch disease theory, we assess how the recent housing boom has contributed to a decline in China's manufacturing exports. Using Chinese city and enterprise panel data from 2004 to 2013, our analysis reveals that Dutch disease indeed exists and that the housing price increase has played a very important role in affecting China's manufacturing exports through two key channels: resource movement effect and spending effect. Specifically, this paper found that: (i) the housing price increase hindered labor flowing into China's manufacturing industry (resource movement effect) and caused higher inflation (spending effect); (ii) the housing boom clearly impeded China's manufacturing exports, especially after the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 2008; (iii) the impacts of the housing price increase on China's manufacturing exports were heterogenous, and were more significant for labor-intensive manufacturing businesses, businesses that were foreign owned, less R&D intensive, or located in the central and western regions.     

The role of housing vouchers in baltimore city,Maryland

In Baltimore City, the relative well-being of black and white families using Section 8 housing vouchers versus Section 8 housing certificates is compared. Logistic regression is used to examine whether the social and economic characteristics of a regional planning district play a significantly different role in the likelihood that a district will have voucher or certificate recipients. A second analysis examines the average monthly rent paid by blacks and whites for housing in the certificate and voucher programs. The results suggest that whites receive greater economic benefits in the voucher program than in the certificate program while blacks do not. This article is based on a paper entitled /’’ The Impact of Housing Vouchers on the Black Family,” which was funded by the Baltimore Urban League and presented at the National Conference of Political Scientist, March 1989.     

Workers’ self-management and social property: A participatory approach to black economic development

Conclusion and Implications Self-management provides a context and a process for economic growth, political development, and institution building. Since its use as a developmental model does not presuppose unalterable fealty to any dogmatical theory, it can be easily modulated and revised to fit the particular needs and circumstances of the black community. For example, the concept of workers’ management and social property is a derivation of Marxian theory of social and economic organization. Moreover, Yugoslavia, the only sociopolitical system in which the theory of labor-managed market socialism has been reduced to action through system-wide implementation, is, unlike the U.S. economy or the black community’s subeconomy, a decentralized socialist state. 29 But the conceptual lineage or previous use of the idea does not preclude its revision for use by groups with different socio-historical experiences and contemporary conditions.     

The impact of black mayors on the black community: The case of New Orleans’ ernest morial

Conclusion Dutch Morial is deeply respected by the New Orleans black community. According to a poll conducted in April 1983 by Rose-Stekler Associates, 80% of the black respondents gave Morial “excellent” or “good” job ratings, compared to only 11% who found him doing a “fair” or “poor” job. Despite very limited resourses, the Morial mayoralty has facilitated the entrance of the black middle class into the governmental process, providing access to city contracts and administrative positions. On the other hand, the black underclass has received meager rewards in the form of employment or a reduction in police brutality. Hopefully, economic development, in the long-run, will create jobs and provide additional city revenue to fund services for the poor. But for now, the primary impact of a black mayor on the black community of New Orleans has been symbolic kinds of benefits. Yet the potential positive benefits of a black mayor serving as a role model for black youth, as well as the value of civil rights rhetoric in fostering hopefulness and a more self-reliant black community, should not be underestimated. The characterization of the status of the civil rights movement in 1983 offered by C. T. Vivian, head of the Anti-Klan Network, well applies to New Orleans black community today: “Everything has changed and nothing has changed. The statistics are still terrible. But the atmosphere is totally different.”⁴⁹     

The impact of the rise and collapse of Japan's housing price bubble on households’ lifetime utility

This study estimates the impact of the dramatic changes in housing prices during Japan's bubble from the late 1980s to the 1990s on households’ asset accumulation and utility over their life cycle. We construct a life-cycle model explaining households’ consumption/saving and housing decisions under collateral and borrowing constraints. We estimate this model using data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), which includes data on households’ housing wealth estimated from objective information. Using the estimated model, we then conduct a counterfactual simulation in which we assume that housing prices remained constant during the bubble period. Doing so allows us to quantify the gains/losses of lifetime utility due to the housing price boom and bust. We find that 72.2% of the households experienced an average decrease in lifetime utility equivalent to 5.7% of lifetime income. On average, Japan's housing price boom and bust caused a loss in lifetime utility equivalent to 4.7% of lifetime income. Moreover, we compare the impact of the housing price bubble across cohorts and find that the impact was greatest for those who experienced the bubble at ages 35–45.     

The Empowerment Zone in Boston,Massachusetts 2000–2009: Lessons Learned for Neighborhood Revitalization

First adopted in 1993 at the federal level, the original purpose of Empowerment Zones was to encourage economic development strategies aimed at revitalizing distressed US urban neighborhoods. Such strategies across the country would include four broad goals: to generate economic opportunities for residents living in the empowerment zones; to create sustainable community development; to build broad participation among community-based partners; and to generate a strategic vision for change in the community. This paper examines Boston’s Empowerment Zone between 1999 and 2009. The author concludes that this initiative was successful in that it helped to revitalize some of the poorest neighborhood areas in this city. While the rate of poverty was not reduced between 2000 and 2009 inside Boston’s Empowerment Zone, there were some notable successes. These include the initiation and completion of major capital projects, including the first Black-owned hotel in New England over several decades; assisting small and neighborhood-based businesses, and helping to expand the capacity of local nonprofits in Boston’s distressed areas. These accomplishments increased the level and quality of economic activity in a part of Boston that was essentially overlooked before the initiation of the Empowerment Zone.     

Comparative labor supply of black and white women

Conclusions The presence of young children decreases women’s labor supply as shown by the LFPRs for women with young children (which are always considerably lower than those for women without young children). Also, the number of young children is almost always negatively related to annual hours of labor supplied (significantly so in half the regressions). Black and white women are found to have an inelastic labor supply, but with increasing elasticity from 1969 to 1974. There is a statistically significant difference in the estimated regression coefficients of the labor supply model for black and white married women in 1969 and 1974 in both the arithmetic and logarithmic forms. The husband’s earnings are significantly negatively related to white married women’s annual hours of work in 1974, while the relationship is not significant for black married women. Crosselasticity terms show that white married women decrease their annual hours of work in response to an increase in husband’s earnings to a greater extent than black married women in 1971 and 1974. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that black women do not rely on their husband’s earnings to as great an extent as white women.     

Civil rights legislation and the housing status of black americans: An overview

This article explores the relationship between civil rights legislation and the housing status of black Americans. An economic and judicial history of the pursuit of fair housing (or equal opportunity in access to housing) is provided for two major periods-from the late 1800s to the 1950s, and from the years of the civil rights movement to the present. An exploration of the housing status of black Americans throughout these periods follows, in which measures such as crowdedness and tenure-attributable partly to inequality in access to housing—are examined, and comparisons of black and whites are made.     

The performance of black-owned commercial banks: A comparative analysis

The objective of this study was to examine performance differences among black banks of different asset sizes, as compared with average nonminority banks of similar asset size from 1985 to 1991. The study found that large black banks with assets over $50 million outperformed smaller black banks with assets less than $50 million in terms of return on assets (ROA) and return on owners’ equity. Also, when compared with average nonminority banks with assets less than $300 million, the large black banks exhibited a statistically significant higher ROA than average nonminority banks in 1985 through 1987. However, the differences were found to be statistically insignificant in terms of return on owners’ equity (ROE) during the study period. Regression results show that provision for loan loss, high liquidity, and investment in treasury and government securities continue to impact negatively on small black banks’ performance but these factors have no statistically significant impact on large black banks’ performance.