Black presence above 10 percent of a neighborhood triggers falling property values

Evidence

Those federal policies that boosted white homeownership at black expense still haunt us today because white Americans, the majority of all homebuyers, are still not interested in buying in racially diverse neighborhoods. Studies show that the average black homeowner lives in a neighborhood that is 51 percent black, while the average white homeowner lives in a neighborhood that is 80 percent white. And when that shifts, research shows, property values start falling when black presence in the neighborhood exceeds 10 percent. The values fall even further as black presence increases. Research shows that black Americans are the most “disfavored” of racial and ethnic groups; similar property devaluation has not been found for Latinx or Asian American homeowners. White American preferences create what I have called an “appreciation gap” that depresses the market value of homes in diverse or all-black neighborhoods, while increasing the value of homes in all-white neighborhoods. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1266

Categorization

• DEFINE: Brown defines the “appreciation gap” here as white-preference-driven devaluation of black neighborhoods, the quantitative crux of her causal claim.
• SEED: The 10 percent devaluation threshold is a powerful, debatable number — a factual anchor for the reparations brief.
• XREF: connects to: Proximity to black neighborhoods triggers white flight that intensifies with black population share. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 1046; Black occupancy raised Mozley Park property values despite white predictions — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 179