TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cutler,David M.
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
AU  - Vigdor,Jacob L.
TI  - The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5881
PY  - 1997
Y2  - January 1997
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5881
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5881.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David M. Cutler
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1875 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-5216
Fax: 617/496-8951
E-Mail: dcutler@harvard.edu

Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Jacob L. Vigdor
Sanford School of Public Policy
Box 90245
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Tel: 919/613-9226
Fax: 919/681-8288
E-Mail: jacob.vigdor@duke.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1997-10-01
AB  - This paper examines segregation in American cities from 1890 to 1990.  We divide the century into three time periods.  From 1890 to 1940, ghettos were born as blacks migrated to urban areas and cities developed vast expanses filled with nearly exclusively black housing.  From 1940 to 1970, black migration continued and ghettos expanded.  Since 1970, there has been a decline in segregation as blacks have moved to suburban areas and central cities have become less segregated.  Across all of these time periods there is a strong positive relation between urban population or density and segregation.  We then examine why segregation has varied so much over time.  We find evidence that the mechanism sustaining segregation has changed.  In the mid-20th century taken by whites to exclude blacks from their neighborhoods.  By 1990, these legal barriers enforcing segregation had been replaced by decentralized racism, where whites pay more than blacks to live in predominantly white areas.
ER  -