Public Policy and Patterns of Residential Segregation

• Date: 01 December 1989
• Author: Gregory R. Weiher
• DOI: 10.1177/106591298904200412
• Published date: 01 December 1989
• Subject Matter: Articles

PUBLIC POLICY AND PATTERNS OF
RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION
GREGORY R. WEIHER
University of Houston
LACK
geographic segregation is, at least in part, a manifestation
of a continuing aversion to blacks on the part of whites (Bobo,
Schuman, and Steeh 1986). The measurement of segregation is
problematic owing to the many facets of the concept (Stearns and
Logan 1986). Nevertheless, most studies conclude that segregation,
however it may be measured, has not decreased notably in metro-
politan areas (for instance, Massey and Denton 1987).
The persistence of residential segregation stands as an indictment
of nearly forty years of civil rights policy. The federal courts and the
Congress of the United States have been engaged in an ongoing formu-
lation of policy designed to limit racial discrimination. Governmental
attempts to open opportunities to blacks have produced notable suc-
cesses in employment, voting, and education. In spite of repeated
initiatives in the area of housing, however, few places in the metropolis
can be said to be stably integrated (Massey and Mullan 1984; Berry
and associates 1976).
An important element of the general argument of this paper is the
contention that many whites prefer not to live near residential concen-
trations of blacks. There is, therefore, a continuing interest on the part
of whites to find residences that do not expose them to blacks.
We
argue that public policy has been able to redirect this interest,
but not to thwart it. Civil rights policy has substantially dismantled
neighborhood level, or &dquo;intra-jurisdictional,&dquo; mechanisms of segrega-
tion. But federal court policy has reinforced devices which support
inter-jurisdictional racial segregation. If neighborhood level segrega-
tive mechanisms are removed while municipal level segregative mech-
anisms are left intact, municipal borders should gradually become
racial and class borders as well. A change in patterns of segregation of
Received: March 4, 1988
First Revision Received: November 18, 1988
Second Revision Received: January 10, 1989
Accepted for Publication: January 19, 1989
NOTE: My thanks to Jim Stimson, John McIver, John Lorence, and Kent Tedin for
reading this manuscript and making helpful suggestions. Also, thanks to John
Sprague, Robert Salisbury, George Tsebelis, and Paul Johnson for good advice on
a previous draft.

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652
this sort would entail no necessary change in the overall level of
segregation.
In this paper, we first review evidence of continuing antipathy of
whites toward blacks. We then review research which attempts to
measure metropolitan segregation. Subsequently, we recount the
developments which have led to the weakening of neighborhood level
segregative devices, and then discuss developments which support seg-
regation on various grounds among jurisdictions. The central hypothe-
sis of this paper is that the summary impact of these two lines of public
policy, in the presence of continuing white aversion to blacks, should
be a shift in geographic patterns of segregation. Analysis of variance
results for municipalities in Cook County, Illinois, and Los Angeles
County, California, are then presented which demonstrate that, in
these two metropolitan counties, segregation by race and socio-
economic status has become a jurisdictional, rather than a neighbor-
hood level, phenomenon. Finally, we suggest processes by which
changes in policy and changes in patterns of segregation in metro-
politan areas may be linked.
WHITES’ CONTINUING AVERSION TO BLACKS
.
,
~
A
principal argument made in this paper is that whites continue to
be averse to contact with blacks, particularly in their neighborhoods.
Survey data indicate that the numbers of whites who are overtly willing
to express hostility or distaste for blacks, or to deny them equal chances
in various social and political situations have decreased. Nevertheless,
a large number of whites continue to make such overt expressions
(Sniderman and Tetlock 1986). According to a Harris national survey
taken in 1978, one-half to one-quarter of Americans agree that &dquo;blacks
tend to have less ambition than whites&dquo;; that blacks &dquo;breed crime&dquo;;
that blacks &dquo;have less native intelligence than whites&dquo;; that blacks
&dquo;want to live off the handout&dquo;; that &dquo;blacks are more violent than
whites.&dquo; Most pertinent for present concerns, 25 percent of Americans
agree that &dquo;white people have a right to keep blacks out of their neigh-
borhoods, and blacks should respect that right.&dquo; When asked if home-
owners should be able to choose not to sell to blacks, 47 percent
answered that they should (Sniderman and Tetlock 1986: 143). These
figures quite possibly underestimate the presence of racial antipathy
since whites may have learned that racially critical remarks are &dquo;social-
ly unacceptable&dquo; (Jackman 1978, 1981; Jackman and Muhe 1984).
More recently, Bobo, Schuman, and Steeh (1986) reported that
public acceptance for the principle of open housing has increased and
is now over 90 percent; but public support for specific government pro-
grams of implementing open housing is much lower (46 percent at its
peak value). Although most whites would approve of one black house-

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653
hold of similar education and income moving into the neighborhood,
public approval for blacks moving in substantial numbers is much
lower (90 and 48 percent respectively). In later research, Schuman and
Bobo (1988: 295) found that white opposition to integration is a com-
plex phenomenon, but that it is partly attributable to racial prejudice.
Farley and associates (1978) presented survey respondents with
graphic representations which portrayed a hypothetical neighborhood
of fifteen house-shapes. Mixed neighborhoods were represented by
graphics in which an appropriate number of house shapes had been
blackened. Using this method of presentation rather than questions
about abstract values, the authors found considerable white resistance
to residential integration. Twenty-five percent of whites would not feel
comfortable if one neighborhood household in fifteen were black. In a
half-black neighborhood, 72 percent of whites would be uncomfort-
able. Forty percent of whites would move from an area that was half
black, and 64 percent would move from a majority black area. One-
half of whites said they would not move into an area that was 20 per-
cent black.
Persistent white aversion to blacks is likely to be most manifest in
the selection of residences. Myrdal (1944) observed that whites are
most averse to those contacts with blacks which challenge white status
and social distancing (see also Berry and associates 1976). Massey and
Mullan (1984) note the critical importance of residence as a dimension
of racial separation. White aversion to contact with blacks with respect
to residential choices is evident in the fact that, considerations of hous-
ing quality and amenities being equal, demand for housing is de-
pressed when that housing is located near concentrations of blacks
(Palmquist 1984).
PERSISTENT SEGREGATION
Studies conducted in the sixties, seventies, and eighties have not
found a general reduction in residential segregation. The most en-
couraging reports have been those that cite small reductions in index-
of-dissimilarity (D) values for varying samples of American metro-
politan areas (Van Valey, Roof, and Wilcox 1977; Sorenson, Taeuber,
and Hollingsworth 1974; Taeuber and Taeuber 1965). Massey and
Denton (1987) reported declines in racial segregation in the SMSAs of
the West. In the Midwest and Northeast, however, where the vast
majority of blacks live, there has been no lessening of segregation.
Other studies reported either no change or increases in the values of
various indices of segregation, and no change in patterns of residential
segregation in the wake of policies promoting integration (J. Farley
1983; Winsberg 1983). Black suburbanization, though it is found to

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654
have increased, is also found to have replicated patterns of ghettoiza-
tion existing in central cities (R. Farley 1970; Logan and Schneider
1984; Stahura 1988). Massey and Denton (1987) found that there are
still substantial barriers to black suburbanization. Berry and associates
(1976) reviewed findings that black occupied housing rarely reverts to
white ownership, and that there are very few areas which are inte-
grated in the sense that they attract both black and white prospective
residents. Stahura (1988) found that black movement into the suburbs
could best be described as invasion-succession, replicating the neigh-
borhood racial transition of central cities. Significantly, at least one
study (Stein 1987) reported that segregation by race, education,
income, and age increases with the number of municipal governments
in SMSAs (though only the coefficient for education is significant at
the .05 level).
~
CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS IN JUDICIAL POLICY:
PROMOTING INTEGRATION
.
In the period immediately following World War II and continuing
through the 1960s, U.S. federal courts have ordered the dismantling of
mechanisms which had traditionally been used to separate blacks and
whites. The removal of these mechanisms began as early as 1948 when
the Supreme Court declared in Shelley v. Kramer that racially dis-
criminatory restrictive covenants were not legally enforceable. The
effort against discrimination in housing also included the 1968 Fair
Housing Law, and the court invoked the federal Civil Rights Act of
1866 which guaranteed to blacks the same...