Inequity by Default: Metropolitan Foreclosure, Housing Supply, and Racial Residential Segregation

Thiago Marques, University of Washington

Few studies have attempted to connect the housing crisis with spatial patterns of racial-ethnic segregation in American cities. This study is among the first to investigate the impact of concentrated home mortgage foreclosure on processes of racial residential segregation in the U.S. I combine metropolitan-level census data with a unique geocoded dataset covering nearly all foreclosure listings between 2005-2010. Results indicate that foreclosure concentration does not affect changes in two minority-white segregation indexes between 2000-2010. Nevertheless, associations between foreclosure concentration and several housing market conditions known to reshape residential segregation are significant and operate as hypothesized. Specifically, percent foreclosure predicts increases in internal migration and declines in median housing value and the rate of minority homeownership. Findings suggest the effects of the housing crisis on changes in racial residential segregation have not yet materialized but may occur in the future as foreclosures continue to influence urban housing supply processes.