Subsidized Housing and Racial Change in Yonkers, New York

Abstract

This paper uses an exploratory regression model to discern whether subsidized housing has had any independent association with changes in neighborhood racial composition in Yonkers, New York. Using data from all Yonkers census tracts for 1970 to 1980, the model shows that, all else equal, a higher increase in the percentage of blacks in a tract was associated with both the prior existence of subsidized (especially family-occupied) housing and the construction of such units during the decade. On average, one-third of the observed increase in the percentage of black residents in tracts having subsidized construction during the 1970s can be so attributed. However, projections based on the model suggest that the proposed court-ordered subsidized housing for Yonkers would yield from 1990 to 2000 only a minimal increase in the percentage of black residents in the affected tracts.