A new study led by a demographer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has found that the large number of home foreclosures as a result of the 2008-09 recession greatly increased racial segregation in American housing.
Some 9 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure during this period and the hardest hit communities were Blacks and Hispanics. The Cornell study found that foreclosures in Black and Latino neighborhoods were three times as high as the foreclosure rate in White neighborhoods.
The study found that Whites tended to leave neighborhoods where foreclosure rates were high and Blacks and Latinos moved to these areas to find affordable housing. As a result racial segregation has increased. The authors of the study estimate that the foreclosure crisis increased residential segregation between Blacks and Whites by 20 percent.
The study, “Neighborhood Foreclosures, Racial/Ethnic Transitions, and Residential Segregation,” was published on the website of the American Sociological Review. It may be accessed here.
