Counterbalancing Disadvantage? Residential Integration and Urban Black Homicide

Abstract

Previous research has cited both racial and class segregation as important correlates of black homicide rates. We extend this line of inquiry by considering an interaction effect of racial and class integration on city-level variation in black homicide rates. Specifically, we contrast the effects contact between disadvantaged blacks and three distinct groups—more affluent blacks, disadvantaged non-blacks, and more affluent non-blacks—has on black homicide rates. Analyses of black homicide victimization and socioeconomic data for 159 central cities in the year 2000 indicate that higher levels of residential exposure between disadvantaged blacks and more affluent blacks does little to reduce rates of violence among blacks. Likewise, greater contact between disadvantaged blacks and disadvantaged non-blacks also fails to suppress rates of black violence. In contrast, when disadvantaged blacks have higher levels of exposure to more affluent non-blacks, homicide rates among blacks are consistently lower. Implications of these findings for theory and research on urban disadvantage and serious violent crime are discussed.