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Citation

Lewis, Valerie A.; Emerson, Michael O.; & Klineberg, Stephen L. (2011). Who We'll Live with: Neighborhood Racial Composition Preferences of Whites, Blacks and Latinos. Social Forces, 89(4), 1385-1407.

Abstract

The debate about racial residential preferences has two open questions. First, are neighborhood racial preferences truly racial, or is race a proxy for socio-economic factors? Second, are in-group or out-group preferences more salient? Using the Houston Area Survey, we employ a factorial experiment to assess the effect of racial composition on neighborhood desirability independent of crime, school quality and property values. We survey whites, blacks and Hispanics to examine in-group vs. out-group preferences. Results show that independent of proxies, whites find neighborhoods less attractive as the proportion black or Hispanic increases; the proportion Asian has no impact. Racial composition has little effect on Hispanics' and blacks' neighborhood preferences. We find no evidence of ingroup preferences; rather, results suggest that whites express negative out-group preferences toward black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

URL

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41290134

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2011

Journal Title

Social Forces

Author(s)

Lewis, Valerie A.
Emerson, Michael O.
Klineberg, Stephen L.

Article Type

Regular

Data Set/Study

Houston Area Survey

Continent/Country

United States

State

Texas

Race/Ethnicity

Black
Hispanic/Latinx
White