Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Margery Austin Turner on Racial/Ethnic Disparities

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.

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.

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.

[Tulsa World] With media engrossed by skyrocketing home prices, Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities Director Margery Austin Turner and Research Associate Carla Herbig remind readers that "for many Americans, spiraling home prices and rents aren't the only barriers to housing. Discrimination -- by landlords, real estate agents and mortgage lenders -- stands in the way of too many families searching for a place to live."

This report presents results from the second phase of the latest national Housing Discrimination Study (HDS2000). The national results presented here for Asians and Pacific Islanders are based on a sample of 11 metropolitan areas that account for more than three quarters of all Asians and Pacific Islanders living in metropolitan areas nationwide. The study finds that Asians and Pacific Islanders face significant levels of discrimination when they search for housing in large metropolitan areas nationwide—levels of discrimination similar to that of African Americans and Hispanics.

The nation is making real progress in combating housing market discrimination. New estimates from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), based on Urban Institute research, indicate that while discrimination persists against African Americans and Hispanics searching for homes in major metropolitan areas, its incidence has generally declined since 1989. When African Americans and Hispanics visit real estate or rental offices to inquire about the availability of advertised homes and apartments, they face a significant risk of receiving less information and less favorable treatment than comparable white customers.

In March, 1998, the Urban Institute, with support from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), convened a conference that involved many of the best-known researchers working on the measurement of discrimination. The goals of the conference were to explore the feasibility and merits of creating a national report card on discrimination, assess the role that paired testing and other social science methodologies might play in its formulation, and identify the pilot research needed for the report card's full implementation.