[angdis]

Its easy to conclude that but suppose you're a white high-income professional who is looking for a home in Baltimore city. You have your pick of any neighborhood. Would you choose....

A) A rowhome in a squalid neighborhood beset with heroin dealing, unsupervised youth, poor upkeep, and median household income of 10K, a main street of furniture rental shops, cellphone stores and liquor stores that sell mostly "40's".

or

B) A gorgeous house in a neighborhood of other professionals with meticulously maintained and upgraded houses, a mainstreet with a wine bar and coffee house that makes cappuccino's with the fancy swirly foam.

Whether you're black or white, you WILL choose B if you can at all afford it. The sad truth is there aren't enough African americans who can choose B enough to change the optics of this situation.

The pattern persists partly because large cities in the united states consist of the poor or the wealthy with very little inbetween. Middle income folks go to the exburbs because they can't afford the nice parts of the cities and can't afford private school for their kids (sending your kids to public schools in the cities is completely out of the question for any family that values education).