The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods: How Racism Robs Homeowner of the American Dream

Authors

Andre Perry, The Brookings Institution

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-13-2019

Publisher

Brookings Mountain West

Abstract

Homeownership lies at the heart of the American Dream, representing success, opportunity, and wealth. However, for many of its citizens, America deferred that dream. For much of the 20th century, the devaluing of black lives led to segregation and racist federal housing policy through redlining that shut out chances for black people to purchase homes and build wealth, making it more difficult to start and invest in businesses and afford college tuition. This lecture explained how much money majority-black communities are losing in the housing market stemming from racial bias, finding that owner-occupied homes in black neighborhoods are undervalued by $48,000 per home on average, amounting to $156 billion in cumulative losses.

Keywords

Metropolitan policy; Economic growth; Racism; American dream; Housing

Disciplines

Economics | Public Policy

File Format

PDF

File Size

2.370 KB

Streaming Media

Language

English

Comments

This event was held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in the Greenspun Hall Auditorium on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 6 pm.

Andre Perry is the David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Metropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Repository Citation

Perry, A. (2019). The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods: How Racism Robs Homeowner of the American Dream.
Available at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/brookings_lectures_events/143