Ghetto expansion and single-family housing prices: Chicago, 1968–1972

Analysis of selling prices of single-family homes in the City of Chicago during the period 1968–1972 confirms that, controlling for structure and other characteristics, price levels and rates of price increase were lower in black than in white neighborhoods, and that blacks were willing to pay more to move into white neighborhoods but whites showed an aversion to living in changing neighborhoods or those contiguous to black areas. Differences in price changes at the white-Latino interface indicate that the most general influence on levels and changes is neighborhood filtering among submarkets segmented by income, race, and other characteristics, but that arbitrage mechanisms must be invoked in the case of the white-black interface.