Grasping for the American Dream: Racial Segregation, Social Mobility, and Homeownership

ISBN-10: 0429664567
ISBN-13: 9780429664564
Category: Social Science
Pages: 158
Language: English
Published: 2021-07-16
Publisher: Routledge
Author: Nora E. Taplin-Kaguru

Description

African American homebuyers continue to pay more for and get less from homeownership. This book explains the motivations for pursuing homeownership amongst working-class African Americans despite the structural conditions that make it less economically and socially rewarding for this group. Fervent adherence to the American Dream ideology amongst working-class African Americans makes them more vulnerable to exploitation in a structurally racist housing market. The book draws on qualitative interviews with sixty-eight African American aspiring homebuyers looking to buy a home in the Chicago metropolitan area to investigate the housing-search process and residential relocation decisions in the context of a racially segregated metropolitan region. Working-class African Americans remained committed to homeownership, in part because of the moral status attached to achieving this goal. For African American homebuyers, success at the American Dream of homeownership is directly related to the long-standing dream of equality. For the aspiring homebuyers in this study, delayed homeownership was a practical problem for the same reasons, but they also experienced this as a personal failing, due to the strong cultural expectation in the United States that homeownership is a milestone that middle-class adults must achieve. Furthermore, despite using perfectly reasonable housing search strategies to locate homes in stable or improving racially integrated neighborhoods, the structure of racial segregation limits their agency in housing choices. Ultimately, policy solutions will need to address structural racism broadly and be attuned to the needs of both homeowners and renters.

Get the book

Similar books

EBOOK: The Stata Survival Manual
By David Pevalin, Karen Robson
Timberlake website Another useful website is www.timberlake.co.uk. Timberlake Consultants is a statistical consultancy company that also distributes and ...
Brooks/Cole Empowerment Series: Understanding Generalist Practice
By Karen K. Kirst-Ashman, Grafton H. Hull
Timberlake, E. M., Farber, M. Z., & Sabatino, C. A. (2002). The general method of social work practice (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Timberlake, E. M. ...
The Fashionista Files: Adventures in Four-Inch Heels and Faux Pas
By Karen Robinovitz, Melissa de la Cruz
All Out of Love • Madonna: The Immaculate Collection • Erasure: Circus Justin Timberlake. Justified - - - - - - - - - - * 75% + T H E FAS H ...
Asian Americans Information Directory: A Guide to Organizations, Agencies, Institutions, Programs, Publications, and Services Concerned with Asian American Nationalities and...
By Karen Backus
+ 3590 + Hmong from Laos c / o Assoc . of Hmong in Illinois 4554 N ... Veteran ' s Alliance 1544 Timberlake Rd . St . Paul , MN 55117 Vue Yang , Vice Pres .
Marriage and Cohabitation
By Arland Thornton, William G. Axinn, Yu Xie
... is much higher than in the United States, with the prevalence in France being perhaps the highest (Heuveline and Timberlake 2004; Toulemon 1997).
Native American Verbal Art: Texts and Contexts
By William M. Clements
HENRY TIMBERLAKE'S CHEROKEE WAR SONG 1. That Timberlake's memoir contains the first English translation of the words of a Native American song seems to have ...
Oratory in Native North America
By William M. Clements
But Timberlake seems to have had a bit more literary sensitivity - suggested by his translation of the Cherokee war song in his memoirs - than these earlier ...
Contemporary Urban Sociology
By William G. Flanagan
Timberlake , Michael . 1985. " The World System Perspective and Urbanization . ” In Michael Timberlake ( ed . ) , Urbanization in the World Economy , 3-4 .
The Bhopal Tragedy: Language, Logic, And Politics In The Production Of A Hazard
By William Bogard
The poor tend to live in dwellings that are structurally unsuited to withstand the impact of environmental extremes (Wijkman and Timberlake 1984, pp.
The Archaeological Guide to Iowa
By William E. Whittaker, Lynn M. Alex, Mary De La Garza
To display and share his discoveries, in 1940 Johnson built the Timberlake Museum on his farm. It remained open to the public during the summer and for ...