A new study finds that while homeownership can spark feelings of pride in people of any race, it tends to be more meaningful for minorities.
On the other hand, because blacks and Latinos are more likely to buy homes in disadvantaged communities and less likely to be able to move out, they ultimately tend to feel dissatisfied with their community—and potentially with their purchase.
“Homeownership may be considered a double-edged sword,” says Meredith Greif, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University. “For minorities, the highs of homeownership are higher while the lows are lower.”
Greif set out to determine whether owning a home means different things to blacks, Latinos, and whites, and whether owning a home can increase a resident’s chance of neighborhood dissatisfaction in disadvantaged communities. The study appears online in Urban Studies.
Studying homeowners in Los Angeles County through information from the 2001 Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey and the 2000 Census, she found that whites had significantly higher rates of homeownership than blacks and Latinos. Whites were also most likely to live in “desirable” neighborhoods with greater property values, better services, and higher prestige.
Greif’s findings suggest, however, that living in these enviable communities may not provoke the same sense of pride and achievement for whites that it does for the blacks and Latinos living there—just as living in disadvantaged communities may not spark the same level of concern.
“Whites have more of an economic buffer,” she says. “There is less at stake for them one way or the other.”
For blacks, owning a home, particularly in a more advantaged community, may evoke feelings of conquering the odds. The feelings are similar among Latinos, many of whom are immigrants looking to assimilate socially and economically.
Black and Latino homeowners, however, are significantly less likely to be able to buy homes in the neighborhoods that would elicit those feelings.
In 2002, the median net worth of white households was 15 times that of black households and 10 times that of Latino households, meaning blacks and Latinos put considerably more of their net worth into buying a home. So when minorities were faced with signs of neighborhood deterioration—graffiti, litter, abandoned buildings—they were much more anxious about the threat to their most vital asset.
Overall, Greif found all homeowners are more attuned to their communities than renters, in both good and bad ways. Homeownership can foster stronger neighborhood satisfaction in advantaged communities but undermine it in less advantaged ones.
“These findings speak to the ongoing dialogue surrounding the benefits of homeownership—and for whom,” Greif says.
Source: Johns Hopkins University. Republished from Futurity.org under Creative Commons License 3.0.
