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Southeastern Geographer Vol. XXIX, No. 2, November 1989, pp. 92-105 BIRMINGHAM SEGREGATION: IS IT A PRODUCT OF BLACK-WHITE SOCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES? Bobby M. Wilson Studies have documented the decline of racial differentiation in terms of educational attainment, occupational distribution, and real purchasing power. (J) This was first noted in 1973 by Wattenburg and Scammon, "for the first time in the history of the republic, truly large and growing numbers of American blacks have been moving into the middle class." (2) Other changes also have occurred in the overall climate of racial attitudes. Between the early 1940s and the mid-1960s, the proportion of national samples of whites who believed that blacks were as intelligent and educable as whites rose from about 40% to 80%. (3) The proportion of whites who said that it would make a difference if a black with the same income and education moved into their neighborhood declined from 62% in 1942 to 21% in 1968. (4) In 1976, 88% of a national sample ofwhites agreed with the idea that blacks have a right to live wherever they can afford to. (5) In cities outside the South, the process of black residential development has involved middle-class black householders seeking affordable housing outside traditional black communities. Over one-third of the tracts in Detroit during the 1940s and 1950s were classified as undergoing invasion. (6) In a 1965 national survey, more white respondents in the North than in the South reported having lived on a block with a black family. (7) Nationally, the proportion of blacks living in central cities of urbanized areas declined in the 1970s for the first time in many decades. Furthermore , the numerical increase in the suburban black population was greater than the numerical increase in the central city black population. (S) In St. Louis, black homeowners were found to be clearly averse to residing within already predominantly black areas. (9) Daniel Moynihan stated in 1965, "There is considerable evidence that the Negro community is in fact dividing between a stable middle-class group that is steadily growing stronger and more successful, and an increasingly disDr . Wilson is Associate Professor of Geography and Public Affairs at the University ofAlabama at Birmingham in Birmingham, AL 35294. Vol. XXIX, No. 2 93 organized and disadvantaged lower-class group." (10) More recently, William Wilson argued that the black community in America was experiencing a deepening class division as the impoverished underclass fell further behind educated blacks who were experiencing unprecedented economic and spatial mobility. (U) As the black middle class moves out of the central city, traditional black communities are changing from exclusively black to exclusively black underclass. These developments have led to speculations that socioeconomic status was becoming more significant than race in explaining patterns of residential segregation in metropolitan areas. Socioeconomic variables have long been identified as important determinants of a group's competitive position in space. Dating back at least to Burgess and Park's classic studies of human ecology, residential segregation was conceptualized as the spatial expression of intergroup variations in economic status. (12) Although certain studies based on 1970 census data indicated that economic differences between blacks and whites accounted for no more than a small component of residential segregation, they said nothing about longitudinal patterns of change. (13) Using census data for 1960—1970, Reese, however, found that socioeconomic factors better explained urban racial residential segregation in the South than in the non-South. (14) The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which segregation patterns in the Birmingham, Alabama, metropolitan area are the product of differences in the economic status of blacks and whites. To what degree is segregation in the city and suburbs due to blacks' inability to afford housing in predominantly white areas? In other words, is class becoming more significant than race in determining where blacks live? The present study examines this relationship longitudinally for the city of Birmingham. Findings from 1980 are compared with the findings from Taeuber and Taeuber's study of the city for each decade between 1940 and 1960. (15) This paper also examines whether the race variable is more significant in the central city than in suburbia...

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