Redevelopment and Integration in the Rust Belt

Michael Bader, University of Michigan

One of the debates underlying urban redevelopment projects in American cities is that racial integration increases as a result of these projects because whites are enticed to move to redeveloping neighborhoods. Studies on the issue, however, have focused on institutional actors and residents displaced by redevelopment projects or have only looked at mobility between cities and suburbs without accounting for the effect of redevelopment projects in this mobility. Using data from two surveys conducted in the Detroit and Chicago metropolitan areas, I investigate the racial and class differences between people who would and would not consider moving to a redeveloped neighborhood as well as the racial and class differences in the ways such communities are perceived. In these analyses, I control for other respondent characteristics as well as test whether racial attitudes and beliefs have an effect on the willingness to move to redeveloped neighborhoods.