Black & White

The general assumption that racial segregation in housing is steadily diminishing north of the Mason-Dixon line is stringently challenged in a report by Albert J. Mayer and Thomas F. Holt, sociologists at Detroit's Wayne State University. In general, they say, most major Northern cities are actually more segregated than they were 30 years ago. Some comparisons for Detroit:

> In 1930, 51% of all Negro residents lived in predominantly white areas; in 1960, only 15% lived in white areas.

> In 1930, 15.8% of the Negroes lived in Negro ghettos. In 1960, Negro ghettos held 23% of the Negro population.

"The result has been the creation of two cities bearing a single name," conclude the authors. ''One. Negro, located in the central city and occupying housing built before 1930. The other, white, now located in the suburbs and on the fringes of the central city, in housing built after 1930."

The reason is partly economic. With increasing prosperity, whites have steadily moved out of downtown areas and into largely segregated suburbs. As the downtown areas deteriorated, rents have fallen, and the Negroes, with generally lower incomes, have moved in. Accelerating the trend is the panic that seizes many whites if a Negro family moves into their neighborhood; each begins to worry that the value of his house will be depreciated, rushes to sell before values toboggan.

Detroit is not alone. Says Sociologist Mayer: "The same polarization of the races has taken place in every major Northern industrial city except New York, where the anti-discrimination laws are rigidly enforced, and where most people live in rented apartments and don't mind if the building is integrated because they have no economic investment at stake."

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