January 25, 2011 | 2:49 PM | By

Now Reading: Sociology in My Neighborhood

FILED UNDER: Media, Race and Class, Racial Divide, Real Estate

Flickr: M.V. Jantzen

Construction in NoMA, which is being transformed by gentrification.

Excuse me, while I nerd out to an exciting new blog– Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward Six. Penned (typed?) by a Professor of Sociology at George Mason University, the site explores the same issues DCentric does, albeit on a hyperlocal level. Here’s part of a post about whether segregation is caused by racism:

Generally, sociologists study whether people are segregated because of personal choice, economic reasons, or racial discrimination. Economic factors are definitely a big reason, especially when we look at housing costs, but racial discrimination still exists. Let’s take a look at sociologists Michael O. Emerson, Karen J. Chai, and George Yancey’s “Does Race Matter in Residential Segregation? Exploring the Preferences of White Americans.”…

Controlling for all sorts of variables, Emerson and his colleagues found that whites are neutral about the likelihood of buying the house if the neighborhood is 10-15% black. Above 15% black, whites say that they would not likely buy the house. They write, “Our findings suggest a low probability of whites moving to neighborhoods with anything but a token black population, even after controlling for the reasons they typically give for avoiding residing with African Americans.” The reasons that whites typically give are crime and declining property values. So, even when the neighborhood offered has little crime and good property values, whites still choose not to live in those with 15% or more black residents.

According to another sociologist Camille Charles, “Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians all appear to want both meaningful integration and a substantial coethnic presence,” while whites exhibit the strongest preference for same-race neighbors. This explains white flight. As whites with a lower preference for black neighbors move out of a neighborhood, more blacks might move in, thus triggering other whites to move. Whites do not have the same preferences in regards to Asians and Hispanics, though all these groups are segregated too. So, whites avoid areas with nontoken percentages of Asians or Hispanics not due to race, but due to other reasons.

This does not bode well for our future:

Even more disturbingly, whites with children under 18 live in areas with 20% fewer blacks than do the whites without children under 18. Black and white children will find themselves even more segregated from each other than black and white adults are.

Why do whites want to live in white neighborhoods, even when all the reasons they usually give for avoiding blacks are removed (crime and declining property values)? As Camille Charles writes, residential segregation has devastating consequences for all blacks, irrespective of socioeconomic status, and later continues, “Whites use segregation to maintain social distance, and therefore, present-day residential segregation…is best understood as emanating from structural forces [economic forces] tied to racial prejudice and discrimination that preserve the relative status advantages of whites.” Sociologists call this opportunity hoarding.

By the way, if you know of other blogs or Twitter feeds with similar, relevant content, PLEASE feel free to let me know. Finding this blog today made me wonder about what else I’m missing!

About the author

DCentric was created to examine the ways race and class interact in Washington, D.C., a city with a vibrant mix of cultures and neighborhoods. Your guides to the changing district are reporters Anna John and Elahe Izadi. View all posts by Anna →

  • http://anthroarchivist.wordpress.com/ Rose

    Thanks for sharing this blog — I’m totally geeking out as well. I’m curious to find out the “other reasons” that whites avoid areas with nontoken percentages of Asians and Latinos, if not race.

  • Guest

    This reporting seems biased. There are a large number of whites moving into mostly black neighborhoods here in DC. I think its more class than race in most cases. People who are educated and can afford it will move to be around other educated neighborhoods. If that excludes blacks, then whose fault is that?

  • Singularity2050

    Your main page says that, “in 5 years D.C. will not longer be a ‘chocolate’ city”.

    Elsewhere you right, “”Many of my friends who are journalists of color lament that their workplaces aren’t very diverse– I don’t feel that way at WAMU, where my boss is African-American, the reporter who sat behind me was South Asian and our General Manager is a woman of color, too. Some may scoff at a word like “diversity”– why should it matter, right? The news is news, reporters and commentators should just do their jobs and do them well. That is true, but so is this– our identities shape who we are, and sometimes, they shape our stories, adding an element or detail with which some of us can identify.”

    Let me ask, if someone prefers to see more “people of color” at their workplace or in their neighborhood, is this any less racist than some people preferring to see more “people of palor” at their’s?

    Are people of palor allowed to openly acknowledget that, ” identities shape who we are, and sometimes, they shape our stories, adding an element or detail with which some of us can identify.”
    … and have that “identity” be directly linked to their race/color?

    What if someone’s main page says, “in x number of years such and such city will not longer be vanilla”?

  • Singularity2050

    Rose, my guess is that it has to do with culture. Globablly and traditionally people have always preferred to live amongst people who share they same culture as they do. Anna John mentions above about “identity” and how race/color/ethnicity is a part of that. Why? Race, color and ethnicity is often bound up in culture, habits, traditions and behaviour as well. Not always, but much of the time. People tend to cluster together based on identity I presume.

  • Singularity2050

    “According to another sociologist Camille Charles, “Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians all appear to want both meaningful integration and a substantial coethnic presence,”

    Which Asians is she refering to, I wonder?

    Middle class – upper middle class Desis with families certainly tend to cluster in majority White neighborhoods – on purpose. In New York they tend to move OUT of the city as soon as they are able to move to the more affluent and safer suburbs of New Jersey – either in majority White neighborhoods or in neighborhoods that have now become majority Desi.

    I wonder what sociologist Camille Charles would think of that? Or maybe it already popped up in her research but she chose to omit it.

  • Jbockman

    Thanks so much for talking about my blog and this study. I made a lengthy response on my blog: http://sociologyinmyneighborhood.blogspot.com/.

  • Golden Silence

    There are a large number of whites moving into mostly black neighborhoods here in DC.

    A lot of these people move to black neighborhoods when they’re single or newly married, but as soon as they have kids and those kids become school-aged, they’re out the door in search of neighborhoods with a “good school district.”