Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Margery Austin Turner on Race, Ethnicity, Gender

Despite substantial progress since passage of the Fair Housing Act four decades ago, neighborhoods remain highly segregated by race and ethnicity. This paper summarizes existing research evidence on both the costs of segregation and the potential benefits of neighborhood diversity. It uses decennial census data to show that a growing share of US neighborhoods are racially and ethnically diverse, but that low-income African Americans in particular remain highly concentrated in predominantly minority neighborhoods. Because the dynamics that sustain segregation today are complex, strategies for overcoming them must address not only discrimination, but information gaps, affordability constraints, prejudice, and fear.

Historically, residential segregation constrained where minorities could live, contributing to disparities in education, employment, and wealth. Researchers interested in the well-being and future prospects of low-income working families have not yet explored how their residential patterns may vary across racial and ethnic lines or considered the implications of these patterns. Therefore, this paper explores differences in neighborhood characteristics among white, black, and Hispanic low-income working families. The findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing the persistent disadvantages facing minority low-income working families need to address the ways the neighborhoods in which minorities live may be compounding these disadvantages.

For the past two decades the United States has been transforming distressed public housing communities, with three ambitious goals: replace distressed developments with healthy mixed-income communities; help residents relocate to affordable housing, often in the private market; and empower former public housing families toward economic self-sufficiency. The transformation has focused on deconcentrating poverty, but not on the underlying role of racial segregation in creating these distressed communities. In Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation, scholars and public housing officials assess whether—and how—public housing policies can simultaneously address the problems of poverty and race.

Sen. Barack Obama’s recent speech on race traced today’s racial inequalities to a history of discrimination, neighborhood segregation, barriers to homeownership, and blocked opportunities for economic advancement. That history, the candidate said, has resulted in a persistent wealth and income gap between blacks and whites and concentrations of poverty in primarily black neighborhoods.

The paper explores how shifts in both social welfare policies and economic conditions beginning in the mid-1990s altered the relative well-being of blacks— compared to whites—between 1997 and 2002. It uses the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to assess how the relative well-being of black families improved or disparities persisted. The findings suggest that some of the disparities between whites and blacks narrowed between 1997 and 2002, especially among people with low incomes. But gaps in income, child school outcomes, employment, assets, and welfare and other income supports, remained essentially unchanged over the period.

Our country’s rental housing challenges are changing in ways that not only affect an expanding segment of the population but also implicate other top domestic priorities. We face a nationwide housing affordability problem, insufficient housing supply in prosperous regions, a problem of housing location within metropolitan regions, and a neighborhood distress problem. Some states and localities are starting to respond to these challenges in new and creative ways. But without a renewed commitment from the federal government, these efforts will never be sufficient to address the breadth and depth of the affordable housing challenges we face today.

New Orleans urgently needs to rebuild affordable rental housing in order to recover fully and fairly. However, neither low-income families nor the communities in which they live will be well served if affordable housing is rebuilt according to the patterns of the past. Models are emerging in other cities that integrate affordable housing into healthy, mixed-income neighborhoods. New Orleans can also look to experience from other cities for examples of how to rebuild low-income communities in ways that are respectful of the original residents but do not concentrate and isolate them yet again. Although local political, civic, and community leaders must all have a voice in decision-making, federal leadership and support is essential.

Policymakers and practitioners need new ways to understand patterns of neighborhood diversity (racial, ethnic, and economic) in their communities, and to track changes over time. This paper documents the prevalence of diverse neighborhoods, describes their geographic distribution, and explores how they changed between 1990 and 2000. It uses decennial census data to develop a new set of neighborhood typologies--grouping tracts into categories that reflect important differences in the racial, ethnic, and income groups represented. These typologies provide updated tools for describing the extent of neighborhood diversity and exploring the implications of diversity for families and communities.

The challenge of rebuilding New Orleans and providing housing for its residents is immense, with tens of thousands of families displaced, their former homes destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The situation is especially difficult for families who lived in the poor, mostly African American neighborhoods that bore the brunt of the flood damage. The challenge going forward is even greater if New Orleans is to avoid old patterns of concentrating assisted housing and poor families in a few isolated communities. In this essay, we draw on evidence from innovative housing programs and development initiatives to outline a strategy that would allow New Orleans to recreate itself as an economically diverse, inclusive city that offers its low-income residents authentic opportunities. With careful planning by and for all, New Orleans can bring back its families and offer them homes in vibrant mixed-income communities.

Will the rebirth of New Orleans echo high-priced Las Vegas or Disneyland? The active involvement of New Orleans residents, business owners, and professional planners, say two experts on urban America, will be necessary to avoid resegregating the city's poor and minority citizens in isolated and distressed neighborhoods.