Do African Americans prefer to live in segregated communities?

Abstract

Following Hurricane Katrina, many people were shocked by the extent of racial segregation in the New Orleans housing market. And yet, New Orleans is far from an isolated case. Forty years after passage of the Fair Housing Act, racially segregated neighborhoods are all too common in the United States. The reasons usually offered for this continued segregation include discrimination in the real estate and housing markets. Recently, these reasons have been challenged by a theory claiming that segregation exists because African Americans prefer to live together for positive reasons, such as to share and support a common heritage. In “Do African Americans Prefer to Live in Segregated Communities,?” Bob DeFina examines the evidence and notes that it casts doubt on the viability of the so-called self-segregation hypothesis.