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There is a long history of unfair housing and lending practices in the United States and generally, African Americans have been disproportionately negatively impacted by these activities. In order to understand the current economic crisis and its impacts on African Americans, one must first explore the historical spectrum of discriminatory actions leveled against blacks in housing and mortgage lending. This paper discusses the recent subprime mortgage crisis and identifies the ways that African Americans were impacted. It provides an historical review of mortgage lending and housing discrimination and the role that public policy played in these practices. It then chronicles the subprime mortgage crisis and connects the consequences of lending policy run amok by targeting minority communities. Keywords Subprime * Mortgage lending * Housing discrimination * Minority communities * Home ownership DOI 10.1007/s12114-010-9078-7

This article explores the relationship between Black shifts to the suburbs and metropolitan segregation using the decompositional properties of the entropy index. This method reveals that much of the decline in metropolitan segregation of Blacks from others is because of declining central city segregation; suburban segregation has much lower average declines. Furthermore, a growing proportion of Black/other segregation is explained by residential distributions within the suburbs. Uneven distributions of Blacks across city lines account for nearly a third of Black/other segregation in the Midwest and Northeast in 2000. In the West, within-suburban sorting is by far the most important component of metropolitan segregation of Blacks from others, while in the South, within-city sorting and within-suburb sorting are relatively equal in importance. Keywords: racial segregation; African Americans; entropy index; suburbs; spatial analysis

African Americans in antebellum New York City followed several different residence strategies in the face of ongoing discrimination. Most lived in enclaves, dispersed throughout poorer neighborhoods that were by no means primarily black. One such enclave was Little Africa. Some lived separately in places like Seneca Village, an African American community just outside of town. This study compares the residents of these two neighborhoods and suggests that the members of these groups were quite different from each other in a number of ways. Aggregation of these differences suggests that the groups represent different socioeconomic classes. This finding runs counter to the views of many commentators and scholars (including archaeologists) who talk about the 'African American community,' implying that the African American population formed (and forms) a homogeneous whole.

The manner in which developers and politicians are using the post-Katrina rebuilding situation to further segregate communities based on race and poverty is discussed. Their plan to build public housing in swampy areas will lead to 'gentrification' of the city with affluent whites, while moving poor, African Americans to vulnerable suburban areas.

A study illustrating the challenges faced by the African-Americans in regard to their housing in New Orleans by examining the status of owner-occupants and renters is illustrated. African-Americans face more difficulties in rebuilding housing and they have less access to housing options, due to racial discrimination and income.

An evaluation of 2500 residential transfers in Margate and the importance of micro-dynamics in determining specific post-apartheid transitions are reported. Findings indicate that unpaid mortgage bills and municipal rates have led to repossessions and affected the credit status of new Afro-American buyers.

A study shows that even with relatively thorough neighborhood controls, there is still evidence that correlation between the error tern and regressors is a source of bias. Fixed effects estimates used in the analysis indicate that African-American owners pay premiums of around 10 percent for housing, and that house values decline in neighborhoods as the percentages of African Americans increase, suggesting prejudicial attitudes.

The desire of African-Americans to live among members of their own racial group is reflected by housing separation within America. The African-American self-separation plays a minor role in explaining housing segregation.