Black migration and white flight: Essays on northern housing and labor markets, 1940--1970

From 1940 to 1970, four million African-Americans migrated from the rural South to industrial cities in the North and West. This dissertation traces the effects of this black migration on the organization of urban space and on low-skilled labor markets in the North.; The first two chapters concern the relationship between black migration and white suburbanization. Racially diverse cities lost white population to the suburbs. While this pattern is consistent with white flight, it could also arise if black migrants were attracted by lower housing prices left in the wake of white departures. To disentangle these possibilities, I develop an instrument for black population growth. The instrument is based on changes in southern agriculture and pre-established settlement patterns from southern states to northern cities. My estimates suggest that white flight explains 20 percent of postwar suburbanization.; Given the prevalence of all-white neighborhoods within segregated cities, why did white households relocate to the suburbs as southern blacks arrived? By moving to the suburbs, residents could isolate themselves from compromise with a diverse urban electorate. To reveal the marginal willingness to pay for suburban autonomy, I compare housing prices on neighboring blocks on either side of city-suburban borders. Housing prices in diverse jurisdictions are worth 3-5 percent less than their suburban neighbors. In 1960, this gap is entirely explained by the correlation between race and poverty, and the higher property taxes associated with a town's poverty rate. By 1970, the price gap widens, which is consistent with anticipation of school desegregation or with the increasing salience of race in local politics after the 1960s riots.; The third chapter turns to the effect of black migration on the northern labor market. I use variation in migrant arrivals within skill groups over time to identify the impact of migration on northern workers. A 5 percent migrant labor supply shock reduces the earnings of competing black workers relative to similarly-skilled whites by 3 percent. This disparity is consistent with racial segregation in employment, and helps explain the slow convergence in black-white earnings in the North.