Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The era of school desegregation is ending. Using home value data from the American Community Survey merged with a database of all school districts ever placed under desegregation orders, I document average White and Black home values before, during, and after desegregation order termination in areas affected by the court ordered desegregation orders, during a timespan that overlapped with the Great Recession and its aftermath (2005-2015). I also show average home values during the same time span for homes located in neighborhoods with high concentrations of White and Black residents.

I find (1) trends in home values change course around 7 years after order dismissal, (2) White home values in predominantly White neighborhoods with dismissed orders (versus those in areas still under orders) exhibited increasing home values throughout the course of observation, even during the Great Recession, and (3) Black home values in predominantly Black neighborhoods with dismissed orders experienced a steeper decline than any other group examined in this paper and were considerably more damaged after the Great Recession than any other type of home value. Since higher home values typically assist in wealth accumulation, racial differences in home values coinciding with policy rollbacks are an important point of observation and potential intervention when considering how to narrow racial wealth disparities.