The Racial Dynamics of US Neighborhoods and Their Housing Prices from 1950 through 1990

In this paper, we use k-medians clustering to categorize urban neighborhoods according to the evolution of their Black population share from 1950 through 1990. We use the resulting classifications to compare the dynamics of median home values and rents for census tracts with rapid racial change, tracts with gradual racial turnover, tracts with a stable high Black population share, and tracts with a stable low Black population share. Our results imply that Black households that bought homes in neighborhoods with rapid racial change were likely to have lost money or barely broken even by 1990.