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C Ch ha ap pt te er r 1 10 0 Geographic Racial Equality in America’s Most Segregated Metropolitan Area—Detroit JOE T. DARDEN GEOGRAPHIC RACIAL EQUALITY Although racial inequality is the predominant pattern in metropolitan Detroit, geographic racial equality also exists, though it is often ignored. Geographic racial equality is defined as those places (i.e., municipalities) that have been incorporated and have low levels of racial residential segregation (below 50 percent) and where Blacks have reached parity with Whites in education, income, and occupational status. This chapter examines such places in the Detroit metropolitan area, America’s most racially segregated area, and compares their socioeconomic characteristics with the metropolitan area as a whole. The results challenge traditional views of Black suburbanization and place stratification. BLACK SUBURBANIZATION: THE TRADITIONAL VIEW Black suburbanization and its relationship to socioeconomic status has been the focus of study by several social scientists since the 1960s (Taeuber and Taeuber 1965; Farley 1977; Frey 1984; Darden 1987a; Stahura 1988; Massey and Denton 1993; Schneider and Phelan 1993; Farley 1995; Frazier and Tettey-Fio 2006). Research conducted prior to the 2000 census showed that most Blacks faced barriers when they attempted to move to the suburbs, regardless of their level of socioeconomic status. In other words, the Black overrepresentation in central cities is primarily because of racial discrimination in suburban housing. Researchers have also found that the patterns of segregation in central cities are being repeated in the suburbs, with Blacks who move to the suburbs confined to a few deteriorating inner suburbs (Alba and Logan 1993). Also, Blacks with a high socioeconomic status were found to be much less likely than Whites with the same status to move to the suburbs (Fielding 1990). This lack of spatial mobility occurs in spite of the fact that Blacks are dissatisfied with public services in central cities (Darden 1987b; Welch, Combs, Sigelman and Bledsoe 1997). The traditional view of Black suburbanization is that when Blacks do manage to move to the suburbs, the municipalities open to them are more likely to include those with a poor tax base, low service expenditures , and a high population density. Black suburbanization has been traditionally viewed within the context of ecological theory, a theory that posits a group’s social and economic status strongly influences its ability to obtain access to housing within the suburbs of metropolitan areas. (Darden 1990) Some researchers found weaknesses in ecological theory when applied to Blacks, which has led to the introduction of the place stratification concept (Alba and Logan 1991). According to this concept, movement to the suburbs does not necessarily lead to residential integration, equal access to resources, or racial equality. This is because the more powerful, White-majority group maintains its advantaged position by keeping less advantaged minority groups out of the most desired municipalities. This behavior results in racial and ethnic groups 136 Joe T. Darden being sorted by each group’s relative standing in society. The outcome is a hierarchy of places within metropolitan areas, including places within the suburbs. Disadvantaged groups such as Blacks may remain segregated in undesirable places even within the suburbs. This structural inequality in residential locations occurs through public and private discrimination in the housing market (Fong and Shibuya 2000). Thus, Blacks may attain income, education, and occupational status equal to that attained by the White majority group and still face difficulties in purchasing a suburban home in certain places. The place stratification concept implies that some groups, especially Blacks, may not be able to convert socioeconomic gains into the quality of suburban neighborhoods occupied by Whites who have comparable socioeconomic status (Alba and Logan 1993). In other words, regardless of their socioeconomic status, Blacks may be steered away from certain suburban places or face discrimination in obtaining mortgages from financial institutions (Turner et al. 2002). Therefore, because of racial steering and limited mortgage financing, Blacks in the suburbs may experience as much residential segregation as Blacks in the city (Darden and Kamel 2000a, 2000b). Moreover, greater Black movement to the suburbs may not necessarily reduce racial residential segregation within the metropolitan areas. THE RACIAL DIVIDE AND SOCIOECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES IN METROPOLITAN DETROIT: 1990–2000 The Detroit Metropolitan Area experienced slow growth over the last decade. In 2000, the Detroit Metropolitan Area (Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties) consisted of 4,043,467 people. Of this total, 2,720,689 were White (67.2 percent), while 1,000,853 were Black (25 percent). Of these, 96...

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