The rise and decline of the American ghetto

This paper examines segregation in American cities from 1890 to 1990. From 1890 to 1940, ghettos were born as blacks migrated to urban areas and citie s developed vast expanses filled with almost entirely black housing. From 1 940 to 1970, black migration continued and the physical areas of the ghetto s expanded. Since 1970, there has been a decline in segregation as blacks h ave moved into previously all-white areas of cities and suburbs. Across all these time periods there is a strong positive relation between urban popul ation or density and segregation. Data on house prices and attitudes toward integration suggest that in the mid-twentieth century, segregation was a p roduct of collective actions taken by whites to exclude blacks from their n eighborhoods. By 1990, the legal barriers enforcing segregation had been re placed by decentralized racism, where whites pay more than blacks to live i n predominantly white areas.