The Hidden Fences Shaping Resegregation

There is a Horatio Alger1-type story about housing that is an important part of the American Dream. The boy-(or girl)-makes-good story goes something like this: “Matthew” is raised in a working-class neighborhood. After Matthew graduates from high school (or college) and gets his first job, he has little money and can only afford to rent a tiny apartment in a workingclass or poor neighborhood. With time however, Matthew is able to build capital and gradually moves up the housing ladder, every decade or so purchasing in increasingly “better” neighborhoods with “better” schools, more amenities, and less crime. By the time he is middle-aged, Matthew has “arrived” and secured a comfortable place in the middle class. By moving out of a working-class neighborhood, Matthew has done more than simply move to a larger, more comfortable house. He has also built wealth and improved his children’s life chances. Middle-class (as opposed to working-class or poor) neighborhoods are more likely to contain well-resourced schools, less crime, and more valuable housing stock.2 It is this latter issue that is the most critical. Many Americans hold the majority of their wealth in their homes. When housing prices in the neighborhood in which a person lives rise in value, the person’s net worth increases. In most housing markets, even despite the recent housing crises, it still makes good economic sense for the vast majority of Americans to improve their housing by moving to more affluent neighborhoods.3 Unfortunately, for many racial and ethnic minorities, the housing mobility dream—of building wealth and improving their housing outcomes—is not possible. Though it is rarely acknowledged by many in the general population, Matthew’s story (or dream, at least in contemporary America) is a “white” dream, which few Blacks4 have been able to realize. In housing, as in almost