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Re:Gerontopoly: Homeownership, wealth, and age by nostromo on Monday April 23, 2018 @07:13PM (#16908324)
Wouldn't white flight followed by re-urbanization favor people of color in terms of home value?

I know in my city the neighborhood that historically had high black homeownership levels now has a million-dollar entry fee. Meanwhile the suburbs are undesirable and cheap.

Re:Gerontopoly: Homeownership, wealth, and age by illumin8 on Monday April 23, 2018 @07:18PM (#16908350)
No, because what do you think those white people fleeing to the suburbs in the 80s and 90s did? They didn't sell homes to minority homeowners because the banks wouldn't give minorities loans. They either sold to other white landlords, or became landlords themselves.

So, the million dollar apartments are owned by wealthy white landlords who have realized 100% of the appreciation, while systematically pushing poorer minorities, who are almost 100% renters, out to even worse ghettos.

Re:Gerontopoly: Homeownership, wealth, and age by nostromo on Monday April 23, 2018 @07:53PM (#16908546)
Home ownership by people of color did rise during white flight (and dramatically so).

https://wp.zillowstatic.com/1/ThenAndNow_Race-Final-594696-1...

Re:Gerontopoly: Homeownership, wealth, and age by 40acres on Monday April 23, 2018 @07:24PM (#16908379)
This is a tricky question for me to answer because I've been doing more research on the "back end" aka why minorities weren't getting housing as opposed to what's happening now w/ re-urbanization.

Part of it is that many homes sold during the white flight and blockbusting era did not go to minorities, there were explicit causes in the sale to prevent this. Another part of this is the fact that minorities who did buy bought "on contract" which means that they did not owe a mortgage to a bank but to an individual (who most likely was a blockbuster) they did not build equity (wealth) and were subject to very harsh loans. I don't know what percentage of homes sold to minorities during this era were "on contract" so it's hard to quantify the effect.

Based on an anecdote it's definitely true that some amount of minorities benefited from re-urbanization.. I was in NE Portland a few weeks ago and had a very interesting conversation w/ a local Uber driver who lamented the fact that his family had sold his grandmothers place in the 90s, this home has probably appreciated at least 3-4x since then.