BLACK AND WHITE SUBURBANIZATION IN THE SEVENTIES: A CAUSAL ANALYSIS

Suburbanization is a dynamic process in American society. This study is a causal analysis of black and white suburbanization for the period of 1976-1978 using logit analysis. Attention is focused on the suburbanization of families with school-age children as well as households without children. The data come from three sources: the 1976 and 1977 Annual Housing Surveys, an NIE Summary Report, and a computer systems file containing structural characteristics of metropolitan areas. The most overriding finding was the consistently strong effect of terminal level of segregation on the movement of families with children to the suburbs. Previous research has focused on white enrollment changes. No one had examined where those who withdraw from central city public schools go. Do those children remain in the central city and attend private schools or do their families move to the suburbs? This study suggests that there is a clear tendency for them to move to the suburbs when terminal level is high. Also apparent was the fact that percent change had no main or interactive effect. In terms of the meaning of black suburbanization in the seventies, several interesting findings also emerged. Historically, blacks have been much less involved in the exodus to the suburbs and those they did move to were older, industrial and located in the inner ring. Moreover, high income blacks were hardly more likely to move to the suburbs than their low income counterparts. This is no longer the case. Not only is there a strong relation between income and the odds that blacks moved to the suburbs among households with and without children, within the latter group, blacks at every income level were more likely than whites to move to the suburbs. Blacks who move to the suburbs, regardless of marital status, are also becoming homeowners. This was true for both subgroups under analysis. It appears that black suburbanization resembles the white pattern of forty years ago. Initially wealthier members of the racial group move to the suburbs and are later followed by families with children and even later by childless households