Abstract
In recent decades, the United States has seen a significant rise in Black immigration, reshaping Black neighborhoods and the landscape of Black America. Using census and American Community Survey data, this article examines the relationship between an influx of Black immigrants and changes in neighborhood racial composition and segregation. Findings show an increase in Black immigrants relates to a decline in the Black native population and an increase in White residents within a Black American neighborhood. Furthermore, the presence of Black immigrants relates to native-born Black-White integration by preceding Black entry into White neighborhoods and White entry into Black neighborhoods. This study elucidates intraracial spatial dynamics between Black people, emphasizing the intersecting roles of race and nativity on neighborhood change in a diversifying United States.
In 2000, a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was home to more than 70 percent native-born Black residents. By 2020, the neighborhood was far more diverse, with only 39 percent native-born Black residents, nearly 20 percent non-Hispanic White, and 13 percent Asian residents. Over that same period, the foreign-born Black population grew from nonexistent to almost 10 percent of the neighborhood.1 Now, replacing vacant lots, African, Caribbean, Asian, and American restaurants all line the same streets.2 Although the neighborhood grew more diverse overall, Black residents, foreign- and native-born, still made up a near majority of the neighborhood, far greater than any other group. For all intents and purposes, this neighborhood remains a Black neighborhood but its racial and ethnic character has transformed over these twenty years as its Black immigrant population has grown.
The influx of Black immigrants to this Midwestern neighborhood is not a unique scenario in the United States; over the past few decades, the size and diversity of the Black immigrant population across the country have considerably grown (Hamilton 2019; Tamir 2022; Tesfai 2019). Now, 20 percent of Black people in the United States are an immigrant or have at least one foreign-born parent (Tamir 2022), making Black immigrants and their descendants a sizable share of the category we call Black in the United States.
Other articles in this double issue address the changing racial and ethnic classifications of Americans revealed in the 2020 Census, prompting a reconsideration of all ethnic, racial, and nativity-based classification categories. Here, I contend that Black nativity is an unexamined source of heterogeneity within Black America and Black neighborhoods. As Black immigrants become more prevalent and diverse in the United States in this decade and beyond, I argue for a reconsideration of the theories linking immigration, neighborhood racial composition, and residential segregation to include the role of Black immigrants.
Existing research highlights the important role that immigrants play in neighborhood racial composition and trajectories. In particular, immigrants alter neighborhood racial composition by affecting native-born residential patterns (Crowder et al. 2011; Ellis and Wright 1998; Frey 1995). Furthermore, the influential buffering theory in urban sociology highlights the more complex role that immigrants may play in neighborhood racial trajectories (Ellen 2000; Farley and Frey 1994; Frey and Farley 1996; Logan and Zhang 2010; Santiago 1991). Buffering suggests that immigrants contribute to stable neighborhood diversity by “reduc[ing] the salience of Black neighbors to Whites, even when they live on the same block” (Logan and Zhang 2010, 1072) or diminishing the importance of the Black-White residential dichotomy (Iceland 2004). Although buffering somewhat explains the emergence of stably diverse neighborhoods that other theoretical approaches cannot accommodate, it remains limited by a focus on the residential preferences and choices of White householders (Wright and Ellis 2021) and agnostic about the role of Black immigrants. Given that they are both Black and immigrants, how Black immigrants may change the racial composition and trajectory of a neighborhood remains theoretically ambiguous.
Therefore, in this article, I test how an influx of Black immigrants relates to future changes in the racial composition of a neighborhood. Using the 2000 Census with the 2008–2012 and 2016–2020 American Community Surveys, I first test whether there is Black American in- or out-migration with increases in the Black immigrant population in a neighborhood, taking a particular lens to Black native majority neighborhoods given the relatively high integration of Black immigrants and Black Americans (Crowder 1999; Cutler, Glaeser, and Vigdor 2008; Freeman 2002; Iceland 2009; Scopilliti and Iceland 2008; Tesfai 2019). Next, I consider changes in the number of White and non-Black immigrant residents as Black immigrants move into a neighborhood, thereby examining how Black immigrants may modify our understanding of the role of race and immigration in neighborhood integration. Finally, I test the expectations of the buffering hypothesis as Black immigrant presence increases in a neighborhood.
Results demonstrate evidence of Black native out-migration with an increase in the Black immigrant population, driven by neighborhoods in which native-born Blacks were a majority in the baseline year. In addition, I find that an increase in the Black immigrant population in baseline majority Black native neighborhoods is related to a substantial increase in White residents. I also find increases in the non-Black immigrant share of all neighborhoods with Black immigrant influx. Finally, I demonstrate that Black immigrants, like other immigrants, can play a buffering role in a White neighborhood, preceding the entrance of other Black people (Logan and Zhang 2010). This suggests that nativity alters racial hierarchies in residential patterns and that all immigrants, regardless of race, can mitigate White flight as native-born Black households move in. I also find a new pathway to Black-White coresidence, which I call reverse buffering, wherein Black immigrants precede the entrance of Whites into Black American neighborhoods.
Altogether, these results suggest that Black immigrants contribute to the diversification of a Black American neighborhood. This article examines intraracial spatial dynamics between Black people and the role that Black immigrants play in neighborhood change as the Black immigrant population grows in the United States. The implications from this study are not limited to Black immigrants and Black neighborhoods, however. I conclude with a discussion of the findings and their implications for the theoretical contours of race and immigrant status and the future of spatial inequality in Black neighborhoods.
BLACK IMMIGRANT RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS
Black immigrants are a diverse group with a long migration history to the United States. Although the early parts of the twentieth century saw growth in the Black immigrant population in the United States, the 1965 Hart-Celler Act was a pivotal moment (Hamilton 2020). By eliminating national origin quotas and making family connections a key basis for admission to the United States, the Hart-Celler Act diversified the immigrants in the United States and considerably increased Black immigration (Hamilton 2020; Waldinger 1989). By 2014, 10 percent of all immigrants in the United States were Black, and Black immigrants made up 9.2 percent of the Black population in the country. Black immigration continues to increase, and because of differential birth rates, Black immigrants constitute a considerable share of the growth of the Black population in the United States (Hamilton 2019).
The Hart-Celler Act mainly increased Black immigration by increasing Caribbean immigration, given their longer history of migration to the United States. In contrast, African immigration to the United States was limited before the 1980s. Two additional acts contributed to the increase in African immigration: the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Immigration Act of 1990. The Refugee Act revised the U.S. definition of a refugee and established an asylum provision in immigration law. Given the considerable upheaval on the African continent in the decades following the independence of many nations, the Refugee Act brought in many African immigrants, with the largest groups coming from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia (Tesfai 2013). The Immigration Act of 1990 made two changes that affected the presence of African immigrants in the United States; first, the act increased the total immigration cap, increasing the number of immigrants allowed in overall, and, second, it permanently established the Diversity Lottery. The Diversity Lottery was intended to increase immigration from countries that have not had long histories of migration to the United States, and now is the primary visa skilled African professionals use to enter the country (Hamilton 2019). In recent years, both the number and rate of growth of Black immigrants has significantly increased because of the growth of both refugee populations and economic and professional migration (Hamilton 2020), making the current moment an important time to better understand Black immigrants and the future of Black America.
The rapid growth and diversification of the Black immigrant population in the 1990s spurred sociological research on the residential patterns of this group. By virtue of their race and immigrant status, Black immigrants posed a unique test of existing theories of racial segregation and immigrant incorporation. A consistent finding emerges from this literature: Black immigrants are on average both highly segregated from Whites and integrated with native-born Blacks, especially relative to non-Black immigrants (Crowder 1999; Cutler, Glaeser, and Vigdor 2008; Freeman 2002; Iceland 2009; Scopilliti and Iceland 2008; Tesfai 2019). This segregation from Whites has largely been taken as support for the place stratification model of immigrant segregation, which suggests that structural forces limit minority groups’ residential opportunities (Logan 1978). The effects of these structural restraints are especially salient for Black immigrants relative to non-Black immigrants, given the importance of race in the housing market (Park and Iceland 2011).
Even though the empirical patterns of high levels of segregation from Whites appear to lend credence to the place stratification model, this literature largely does not consider how Black immigrants may transform these segregated neighborhoods over time. Some research demonstrates that increasing concentrations of Black immigrants are related to future socioeconomic ascent as the result of an influx of new residents and entrepreneurship in previously declining areas (Candipan and Bader 2022; Tesfai, Ruther, and Madden 2020), but how they relate to changes to the racial composition remains unknown.
Thus, in this article, I consider how Black immigrants change the racial composition of a neighborhood, patterns that can have long-lasting implications for the future of a neighborhood (Logan and Zhang 2010; Hwang 2016). Furthermore, by examining how Black immigrants change Black neighborhoods, we gain theoretical insight into how race and nativity interact to determine neighborhood trajectories in an increasingly diverse United States.
IMMIGRANTS AND NATIVE-BORN RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS
Although little is known about Black immigrants and neighborhood change, much social science research has focused on the impacts of Hispanic and Asian immigrants on racial composition and racialized segregation of neighborhoods. One way immigrants transform the racial composition of neighborhoods is native-born out-migration (Card 2001; Crowder, Hall, and Tolnay 2001; Ellis and Wright 1998). Several theoretical alternatives have been proposed to explain native out-migration as a function of immigrant concentration.
First, the ethnic flight thesis argues that native out-migration occurs with growing concentrations of immigrants in a neighborhood due to the changes they have on the racial and ethnic composition of the neighborhood (Crowder, Hall, and Tolnay 2011; Pais, South, and Crowder 2009; Saiz and Wachter 2011). Although Black residents express higher tolerance for integration than White householders, some indications of animosity toward and aversion to Asian and Hispanic immigrants remain (Charles 2000; Wilson and Taub 2007). In assessing neighborhood out-migration, Kyle Crowder, Matthew Hall, and Stewart Tolnay (2011) find that the likelihood of out-mobility for Black householders increases with the relative size of the non-Black population, a variable that is positively but not exactly correlated with the immigrant size. These results indicate that Black aversion to immigrants may be motivated not by nativity bias but by a preference for same-race neighbors (Krysan and Farley 2002). Thus this perspective suggests that, because of their shared race, Black immigrant influx would lead to less Black native-born out-migration, particularly in neighborhoods with a considerable existing native-born Black population.
Supporting the ethnic flight thesis for White householders, research has found that White householders move out of neighborhoods with growing immigrant populations due to the neighborhoods’ changing racial compositions (Crowder, Hall, and Tolnay 2011). Regardless of nativity, White residents avoid large minority neighborhoods due to perceptions about safety, disorder, and amenities (Ellen 2000; Pais et al. 2009; South and Crowder 1998), but this aversion is especially salient for Black neighbors (Krysan 2002; Krysan et al. 2009). Because Black immigrants are both Black and native born, White householders may perceive Black immigrants as less desirable neighbors than both non-immigrant Blacks and non-Black immigrants. This suggests that Black immigrant influx would lead to considerable White out-migration. However, ethnographic accounts have found that, because of their nativity, Black immigrants can be perceived more positively than their Black American counterparts (Kasinitz 1992; Waters 1999); if this holds true in residential preferences, White out-migration may not occur to the same degree as Black immigrants move into a neighborhood.
A second perspective emphasizes labor, housing-market, and socioeconomic conditions changing due to growing immigrant concentrations (Crowder, Hall, and Tolnay 2011; Taub, Taylor, and Dunham 1984). White native-born householders may move out of a neighborhood because of immigrants’ relatively low educational attainment and socioeconomic status (White and Glick 2009) and fears about the trajectory of the neighborhood (Taub, Taylor, and Dunham 1984). For Black householders, Crowder and his colleagues (2011) find that immigrant concentration can be associated with increasing housing costs that lead to Black native out-migration. Because Black immigrants on average outperform or are on par with Black Americans on educational and socioeconomic outcomes (Hamilton 2019, 2020), increases in Black immigrants may lead to Black American out-migration but limit White out-migration.
The varying expectations of these perspectives highlight the theoretical ambiguity of native-born Black and White residential patterns in reaction to Black immigrants. Residential choices are not limited to White and Black householders, however. Although less research has focused on Asian and Hispanic out-migration as immigrants increase in a neighborhood, these groups tend to express strong preferences for a majority coethnic presence (Charles 2000; Clark 2009). For Hispanic householders, some evidence indicates anti-Black residential preference (Charles 2006; Pais, South, and Crowder 2009), and it is strongest among foreign-born Hispanics (Pais, South, and Crowder 2009). This suggests that as Black immigrants increase within a neighborhood, non-Black immigrants would move out.
IMMIGRANTS AND RESIDENTIAL BUFFERING
An alternate way neighborhood racial composition changes is not native-born out-migration but instead the in-migration of various groups. In particular, the buffering theory of residential integration suggests that a pathway to integration between Whites and Blacks exists with the earlier in-migration of Asian and Hispanic residents (Ellen 2000; Farley and Frey 1994; Frey and Farley 1996; Logan and Zhang 2010; Santiago 1991; Kye and Halpern-Manners 2022). As Asian and Hispanic immigrants acculturate socioeconomically, they may have access to previously segregated White neighborhoods. With the entrance of these groups, Black-White integration becomes possible as the likelihood of White flight is lessened as Black residents move in next (Logan and Zhang 2010).
Three main mechanisms motivate this theory. First, these new groups may mitigate White flight by serving as an actual spatial buffer between Black and White households, reducing their proximity within a neighborhood, and thus diminishing the salience of Black households for White residents (Frey and Farley 1996; Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015; Taylor 1998). Second, Asian and Hispanic residents may serve as social buffers or associational brokers by facilitating more contact between Black and White residents, thus minimizing the salience of the Black-White boundary within a neighborhood and diffusing racial animus (Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015, 129; Taylor 1998). Third, the entrance of Asian and Hispanic residents into a neighborhood may affect the perceived racial and ethnic character and diversity of a White neighborhood, thus prompting intolerant White residents to leave. These may be replaced by White householders with a preference for diversity, thereby facilitating Black entrance and reducing Black-White segregation (Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015).
Scholars have found some evidence of Asian and Hispanic in-migration providing a pathway for Black-White integration in what were predominantly White neighborhoods (Logan and Zhang 2010; Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015). If buffering holds in the same way for Black immigrants as it does for Asians and Hispanics, this suggests that the likelihood of White flight would be lessened as Black immigrants move into a neighborhood alongside Black native householders.
Recent critiques of the buffering hypothesis have called for future research to consider how various groups react to Black in-migration, not just White householders. Furthermore, because buffering focuses on White neighborhoods and White residents’ preferences, this may mask alternate pathways to neighborhood diversity that originate from Black neighborhoods (Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015; Wright and Ellis 2021).
However, these existing critiques of buffering are also limited by a notion of residential diversity that excludes Black immigrants. The buffering hypothesis emphasizes that immigrants, perceived as Hispanics and Asians, can serve as a middle ground between Blacks and Whites (Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015; Santiago 1991). Because of their ethnicity and nativity, Black immigrants are perceived differently from their Black American counterparts (Waters 1999) and thus may also serve in this buffering capacity. Still, their role in mitigating or entrenching segregation between other groups remains unclear. Thus, taking heed of existing critiques (Wright and Ellis 2021) and extending to consider the presence of Black immigrants, I test whether Black immigrants relate to integration by buffering between native-born Black and White households and propose and test a process called reverse buffering, wherein Black immigrants precede the entrance of Whites into Black American neighborhoods.
DATA AND METHODS
In this article, I exploit the boom of Black immigration in the past two decades by using the 2000 Census and the pooled estimates from the 2008–2012 (2010) and 2016–2020 (2018) American Community Surveys (U.S. Census Bureau 2002, 2013, 2022). I operationalize a neighborhood as a census tract. Using the National Historical Geographic Information System crosswalks (Manson et al. 2022), I normalize all tract boundaries to the 2010 Census for comparability throughout the included years.
Analytic Strategy
I begin by testing the relationship between Black immigrant influx and neighborhood racial change with lagged first-differences models. In these models, I do not measure variables concurrently. Instead, all dependent variables are measured between 2010 and 2018, with the main independent variable of interest being the change in the foreign-born Black population in the earlier period between 2000 and 2010. Although the aims of this article are not causal, I stagger the outcome and independent variables to mitigate concerns that the changes occurring simultaneously are independent of one another. Therefore, the models all take the following form:
As indicated in the equation, I account for both tract-specific and time-invariant (αi), and time-specific and tract-invariant (γt), unobserved confounders with two-way fixed effects (Wooldridge 2021). Although change can be modeled in various ways, the benefit of this lagged first-differences model is that variation is confined to within tracts and unobserved time-invariant neighborhood characteristics are held constant (Liker, Augustyniak, and Duncan 1985).
In these models, the main independent variable of interest (ΔXi,t–1) is the change in the number of foreign-born Black persons in a census tract from 2000 to 2010. The outcome variables (Yit) are various neighborhood-level measures of racial or nativity composition; the primary outcome of interest is the change in the number of native-born Black persons between 2010 and 2018. To examine changes to the overall racial composition of a neighborhood, I also test changes to the number of non-Hispanic Whites and non-Black immigrants in a neighborhood.
Throughout the models, I control for the existing change in the outcome variables of interest (Yi,t–1) to address secular trends. For example, when testing how an influx of Black immigrants between 2000 and 2010 relates to changes in the number of native-born Black persons between 2010 and 2018, I control for the change in the number of native-born Black persons between 2000 and 2010. Thus, holding the baseline changes in the outcome variable constant, my models test any additional explanatory power from the independent variables’ change. In addition, I control for a vector of various socioeconomic and housing changes in a neighborhood between 2000 and 2010 (Zi,t–1) that may also relate to changes in the racial composition in the later period. This includes baseline changes in population, household income, median home value, percent college-educated, and vacancy. Finally, to account for the regionally concentrated large-scale out-migration of Black residents in many U.S. cities (Frey 2022), I interact the census division (Ci), which divides states into nine sub-regions with a year indicator in all models. Throughout, I test heterogeneity in results by whether the underlying neighborhood is a majority native-born Black neighborhood to proxy for a Black American neighborhood.
Next, to test neighborhood racial trajectories and the buffering hypothesis, I consider neighborhood racial composition holistically using measures of neighborhood presence (see Logan and Zhang 2010; Zhang and Logan 2016). I compare each neighborhood’s share of a particular group (native-born Black, foreign-born Black, and non-Hispanic White) to the overall share in the analytic sample. Following John Logan and Charles Zhang (2010), if the group’s share of the tract population reaches one-quarter of the aggregate share,3 I consider this group to be present in the neighborhood. For example, across all neighborhoods in the analytic sample, native-born Black people make up 12.1 percent of residents on average. Thus, for native-born Black people to be considered present in a neighborhood, they must make up at least 3.0 percent of the residents.
For this analysis, I estimate multinomial logit models considering the end-state of neighborhood racial composition as a function of earlier Black immigrant influx. To test whether Black immigrants can mitigate White exit and facilitate White-Black integration as Asian and Hispanic immigrants do (Logan and Zhang 2010; Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015), I first consider all neighborhoods in which non-Hispanic Whites were present in 2000 but native-born Black people were not. I then consider the pathways these neighborhoods take. The end states of particular interest are, as shown in the first panel of figure 1: first, White exit/Black presence, where, by 2018, White residents fall below the one-quarter threshold and are no longer considered present in the neighborhood and Black residents are present; second, native-born Black-White integration, where both native-born Black and White residents are present, regardless of what other groups are present; and, third, the reference category, where Whites are present, but native-born Blacks are not, as in 2000. Other, less frequent transitions are excluded from the analysis. I consider the transition probability to each state separately conditional on whether Black immigrants were present in the middle period, 2010.
Pathways of Neighborhood Racial Composition Change
Source: Author’s framework.
As an extension of the current literature, I also consider the reverse pathway, starting from neighborhoods in which native-born Blacks are present but non-Hispanic Whites are not. For these neighborhoods, I consider the likelihood of these end states, as shown in the second panel of figure 1: Black native-born exit, where, by 2018, Black native-born residents fall below the one-quarter threshold; and native-born Black-White integration, where both native-born Black and White residents are present, regardless of what other groups are. As before, the reference case is where the presence of non-Hispanic Whites and native-born Blacks is as in 2000, where native-born Blacks are present, but non-Hispanic Whites are not.
RESULTS
Figure 2 presents shares of native-born Black, non-Hispanic White, and overall immigrants of the neighborhoods in the analytic sample in the three periods of analysis: 2000, 2010, and 2018. To situate the focus on native-born Black neighborhoods, I disaggregate by the share of the neighborhood that was native-born Black in 2000. The groupings are: 0 to 5 percent native-born Black, 5 to 20 percent native-born Black, 20 to 50 percent native-born Black, and more than 50 percent native-born Black. I also present the share of Black immigrants residing in each group.
Sample Shares of Black, White, and Immigrant by 2000 Native-Born Characteristics
Source: Author’s calculations based on U.S. Census Bureau 2002, 2013, 2022.
As expected, in 2000, the majority of Black immigrants (60 percent) lived in neighborhoods with a considerable (more than 20 percent) native-born Black share, a disproportionate share given that these neighborhoods make up only 18 percent of all neighborhoods. Still, many Black immigrants live in neighborhoods with lower native-born Black shares, illustrating the often-ignored diversity of residential locations for Black immigrants. Over time, the highest native-born Black neighborhoods became less so, decreasing from an average of 77 percent native-born Black to 68 percent. Meanwhile, the share of Black immigrants living in these neighborhoods decreased, from an average of 22 percent in 2000 to 18 percent by 2018. These neighborhoods diversified overall also, with increases in the shares of Hispanics, Asians, and the overall foreign-born population and small increases in the average share of non-Hispanic Whites.
Overall Changes in Racial Composition
The descriptive results demonstrate that Black immigrants live in Black neighborhoods that are diversifying over time. To examine this more rigorously, I begin by testing how an influx of Black immigrants relates to future changes in the Black American population in the first column of table 1. Within a neighborhood, an increase of one hundred Black immigrants corresponds to a relative decrease in the Black native population of about fourteen persons. This decrease is considerable, but neighborhoods in which Black Americans are a majority may differ in significant ways from other neighborhoods. Ethnic differentiation between Black Americans and Black immigrants is more prevalent in these neighborhoods because of a stronger Black American cultural identity and solidarity (Waters 1996). Furthermore, majority Black American neighborhoods likely have distinct historical contexts that may shape neighborhood trajectories as immigrants move in.
Black Immigrant Influx and Black Native Change
Thus, in the next column, I disaggregate results by neighborhoods in which Black Americans were a majority in the baseline year, the most canonical of which was home to more than 20 percent of Black immigrants in 2000. I interact the change in the number of Black immigrants with a flag identifying whether a neighborhood is at least 50 percent native-born Black in 2000.4 Here, I find that in neighborhoods where native-born Blacks were a majority in the baseline year, the relative decrease in the Black native population is strong, of ninety-four native-born Black persons with each hundred-person increase in the Black immigrant population. In contrast, in neighborhoods in which Black Americans were a minority in 2000, Black immigrant influx is unrelated to Black native changes. These results demonstrate a relationship between Black immigrants increasing in a neighborhood and Black American populations, but this varies by the existing demographic composition of the neighborhoods. When Black immigrants move into a neighborhood that has a minority Black native population, they relate to an increase in the diversity of the Black population, with increases in the foreign-born Black populations and no change in the Black native population. However, in neighborhoods that were majority Black, Black immigrants appear to lead to Black American out-migration.
Next, in models 1 and 2 of table 2, I consider how Black immigrant influx relates to changes in the non-Hispanic White population. I find that, in contrast to the Black American population, an increase in the Black immigrant population is unrelated to changes in the number of non-Hispanic Whites in a neighborhood in model 1. However, as in the first set of results, I next disaggregate by whether the baseline share of Black Americans is a majority in model 2. In neighborhoods in which Black Americans were a majority in 2000, there is a relative increase of 110 non-Hispanic Whites with every hundred-person increase in Black immigrants in an earlier period. In contrast, there is a comparable decrease of about twenty-two non-Hispanic Whites in native-Black minority neighborhoods. Thus, surprisingly, when considering all neighborhoods, an increase in Black immigrants is not related to any changes in the non-Hispanic White population. This contrasts with theories about racial residential turnover and empirical patterns in the literature about White out-migration as Black people move into a neighborhood (Frey 1980; Pais, South, and Crowder 2009), underscoring that nativity matters when considering race and residential patterns. However, in Black American neighborhoods, an earlier increase in Black immigrants is positively related to future White residents, suggesting that Black immigrants change these neighborhoods in ways that may make them more attractive to new White residents.
Black Immigrant Influx and Other Change
In models 3 and 4 of table 2, I consider change in the number of non-Black immigrants as the outcome variable.5 For each hundred-person increase in the Black immigrant population is a relative increase of thirty-nine in the non-Black immigrant population. In model 4, I show this increase holds regardless of whether the neighborhood is majority Black immigrant in the baseline year. However, the increase is greater in magnitude in majority Black neighborhoods.
Altogether, these results demonstrate that as Black immigrants move into a neighborhood, they contribute to its diversification by reducing the number of native-born Black persons and increasing the number of non-Hispanic Whites and non-Black immigrants. These patterns are most pronounced in neighborhoods where Black natives were a majority in 2000.
Buffering
The first set of results shows that the arrival of Black immigrants relates to changes in the racial makeup of a neighborhood. To better understand the processes underlying these racial changes, I turn to testing the predictions of the buffering hypothesis as it relates to Black immigrants. To restate, the buffering hypothesis indicates that (Asian and Hispanic) immigrants can facilitate integration between Black and White households by preceding the entrance of Black households into White neighborhoods (Logan and Zhang 2010; Frey and Farley 1996; Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015; Zhang and Logan 2016). In the global neighborhoods produced by their presence, immigrants become “social and spatial buffer(s)” (Kye and Halpern-Manners 2022). Although this hypothesis has been tested in the literature, how Black immigrants, who are both Black and immigrants, may facilitate Black American and White integration remains unknown.
I first explore whether Black immigrants can mitigate White exit and facilitate White-Black integration as Asian and Hispanic immigrants do (Logan and Zhang 2010; Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015) in model 1 of table 3. As stated, in this model, I consider all neighborhoods in which non-Hispanic Whites were present in 2000 but native-born Black people were not, and test, conditional on whether Black immigrants were present in 2010, the neighborhood reaches one of three end states: one, White exit, where, by 2018, White residents fall below the one-quarter threshold and are no longer considered present in the neighborhood and Black residents are present; two, native-born Black-White integration, where both native-born Black and White residents are present, regardless of what other groups are; and the reference category, three, where Whites are present but native-born Blacks are not, as in 2000. Model 1 of table 3 presents odds ratios that can be interpreted as the likelihood of a neighborhood entering states one and two relative to state three.
Neighborhood Transitions by Black Immigrant Presence in 2010
As shown, relative to remaining a White neighborhood without any native-born Black residents (the reference category), conditional on the change in the Black native-born population in a neighborhood and the change in the non-Black immigrants, a Black immigrant presence in 2010 is related to higher odds of native-Black and White integration in a neighborhood by 2018 and reduced odds of White exit. In this respect, as would be expected by the buffering hypothesis, Black immigrants do appear to facilitate a pathway to native-born Black-White integration by both reducing the likelihood of White flight and facilitating the entrance of Black Americans.
Because the main results also demonstrated racial changes in neighborhoods that were in-itially Black American neighborhoods, I next consider the reverse pathway in model 2 of table 3, starting from neighborhoods where native-born Blacks are present but non-Hispanic Whites are not. For these neighborhoods, I consider the likelihood of, first, Black native-born exit, where, by 2018, Black native-born residents fall below the one-quarter threshold, and, second, native-born Black-White integration, where both native-born Black and White residents are present, regardless of what other groups are. The reference category is where the presence of non-Hispanic Whites and native-born Blacks is as in 2000, where native-born Blacks are present, but non-Hispanic Whites are not.
In model 2 of table 3, results show that in neighborhoods in which Black immigrants were present in 2010, the likelihood of Black exit by 2018 increases relative to remaining a neighborhood in which native-born Blacks are present without non-Hispanic Whites. This aligns with the first set of results, demonstrating native-born Black out-migration as Black immigrants move into a neighborhood. On the other hand, relative to remaining a neighborhood without Whites, the likelihood also increases of becoming a neighborhood in which both native-born Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites are present. Therefore, even though Black immigrant presence is related to Black Americans leaving their neighborhoods, these results suggest that Black immigrants can also lead to Black-White integration in some cases. By either leading to Black exit or White influx, Black immigrants are related to racial change in Black American neighborhoods.
Mechanism Exploration
Overall, my findings reveal that an increase in the Black immigrant population is related to a considerable change in the racial composition and racial trajectory of a neighborhood. Within a Black neighborhood, Black immigrant influx is associated with a significant decline in the number of Black native-born residents and an increase in White and other immigrant residents, transforming the composition of the neighborhoods. When considering a neighborhood’s trajectory, Black immigrants appear to facilitate two pathways to Black-White coresidence by first buffering White flight as Black native-born people move into non-Black neighborhoods and second by reverse buffering, preceding the arrival of Whites in Black neighborhoods.
Although these results are ultimately descriptive, I conclude by considering two potential explanations for these racial changes, particularly in Black American neighborhoods. First, are Black immigrants changing affordability in Black neighborhoods in ways that displace Black native-born people? To answer this question, I test whether, in Black native-born majority neighborhoods, Black immigrant increase in a neighborhood between 2000 and 2010 is related to subsequent changes between 2010 and 2018 in value and rent. Given the vast heterogeneity across metropolitan areas in changing prices, I consider each neighborhood within the context of its metropolitan area. Thus, in these models, changes in the Black immigrant population, rent, and home value are relative to all neighborhoods within the same metropolitan area. I hold constant earlier trends in the White population, overall population, and rent and home value.
Results for these models are presented in table 4. In Black American neighborhoods, an influx of Black immigrants relates to increasing rents (0.333) and home values (0.376). Therefore, Black immigrants are related to neighborhoods becoming less affordable in ways that may lead to Black exit.
Potential Mechanism 1: Changing Affordability
Meanwhile, a selection process may be under way. In this case, Black immigrants would be choosing Black neighborhoods that, by virtue of their earlier trends in affordability, would have experienced racial changes regardless of the presence of Black immigrants. To test this, I consider whether, within a metropolitan area, the rank of the growth of the foreign-born Black population between 2000 and 2010 is related to the relative growth rate in rent and home value between 1990 and 2000. I control for population changes and the changes in the number of non-Hispanic Whites between 1990 and 2000. Results are presented in table 5. The relative growth in the foreign-born Black population between 2000 and 2010 is unrelated to the earlier relative growth rate in rent but positively related to median home value. Thus Black immigrants do appear to be more likely to move into Black neighborhoods with increasing home values, suggesting a potential selection process underlying some of the racial changes. However, the lack of relationship with rent growth implies that the residential sorting of Black immigrants is not necessarily defined by increasing prices overall, but other factors that may correlate with home value growth.
Potential Mechanism 2: Selection
Therefore, when considering the Black native-born majority neighborhoods where change is most pronounced, Black immigrants are both moving into Black neighborhoods already primed for racial turnover and changing the neighborhoods in which they reside.
The observed selection process regarding home value works against a causal argument between Black immigrant presence and racial change. Still, the residential selection process is in and of itself worthy of study (Krysan and Crowder 2017). Future research should explore how and why Black immigrants are moving into the Black neighborhoods experiencing increases in home value, as this further contributes to our understanding of the intersections of race, nativity, and neighborhoods.
CONCLUSION
This study sheds light on the role of Black immigration in shaping racialized residential patterns and provides insights into the consequences of Black immigrant residential incorporation on neighborhoods. In summary, these findings indicate that an increase in the Black immigrant population is related to substantial changes in a neighborhood’s racial composition and racial trajectory. In particular, within a Black native-born majority neighborhood, Black immigrant influx is associated with a considerable decline in the number of Black native-born residents and an increase in White and other immigrant residents. Furthermore, Black immigrants appear to facilitate two pathways to Black-White residential integration by, first, buffering White flight as Black native-born people move into non-Black neighborhoods and, second, by preceding the arrival of Whites in Black native-born neighborhoods, a process I call reverse buffering.
These findings highlight the spatial implications of the unique intersection of race and nativity that Black immigrants occupy. As shown, ethnicity and nativity uniquely interact with Blackness and determine unique relationships between Black immigrants and their neighborhoods that cannot be interpolated from the impacts of non-Black immigrants or Black Americans. Although the analyses I conducted do not allow for a full examination of the pathways through which these racial changes occur, my initial exploration of potential mechanisms suggests that Black native-born displacement is occurring. However, even though I cannot adjudicate here, Black native-born aversion to immigrants, even if they are the same race, may also be exacerbating these patterns. Regardless of the mechanisms underlying the Black native-born out-migration, a crucial question emerges: where do these native-born Black residents go? Examining the neighborhoods that Black native-born residents move to provides insight into the costs of neighborhood change and the landscape of future inequality for Black native-born people. I call on future research to investigate this question.
In regard to White in-migration, qualitative research has consistently established that White people treat Black immigrants differently than Black Americans in the labor market because of their ethnicity and nativity (Kasinitz 1992; Waters 1999; Pierre 2004), and the results in this article suggest this may extend to the neighborhoods in which they live. Black immigrants may transform the ethnic character of a neighborhood in ways that entice White householders, particularly gentrifiers (Hwang 2016), even if the racial composition of the neighborhood remains the same.
Altogether, as Black immigrants’ presence in a neighborhood changes the racial composition of a Black American neighborhood by increasing in non-Black residents, communities may be perceived of as more diverse. Although diversity and segregation are often presented as opposite ends of a spectrum of racialized spatial dominance, they are not necessarily so, and neighborhoods can often be marked by both racial segregation and diversity (Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012; Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015). Thus, to laud the “global” neighborhoods that can be the outcome of an immigrant buffering process (Logan and Zhang 2010) may mask the persistent internal spatial stratification in such places, particularly between Black and White residents (Iceland, Sharp, and Timberlake 2013), and the continued exodus of Whites from diverse areas (Logan and Zhang 2010; Parisi, Lichter, and Taquino 2015). To this end, future research should consider how as, Black immigrants contribute to increased diversity within a neighborhood, patterns of overall Black-White segregation are affected over time, a relationship with implications for the future of neighborhoods as Black immigrants move into them.
The findings from this research have considerable implications on what we know about how race, nativity, and neighborhoods interact. Within the urban sociological literature, scholars who have examined Black immigrant segregation have found consistently that Black immigrants are highly segregated from Whites and integrated with native-born Blacks. This has been taken as evidence of the prevailing importance of race in determining neighborhood attainment. However, this conclusion ignores the inherent dynamism of neighborhoods. As shown, Black immigrants, for several potential reasons, are living in neighborhoods that are changing. Therefore, even though race may determine their initial neighborhoods, their nativity is related to the change these neighborhoods undergo. Thus, given that Black immigrants show greater signs of socioeconomic and cultural incorporation, it may be that their neighborhoods change, rather than them changing the neighborhoods in which they reside. The results from this study provide some extensions of spatial assimilation that warrant further exploration.
More generally, these findings have implications for questions of race, immigration, and the future of racialized spatial inequality. Immigrant status appears to transform the racialized hierarchies in residential patterns, thus challenging sociological notions of a monolithic Blackness. In addition, the differential behaviors of White households in reaction to Black native- and Black immigrant in-migration make the particular contours of racism upholding racialized spatial inequality clearer. Perceived nativity may moderate how and where anti-Black racism is manifest, thus clarifying how spatial inequality and segregation for Black native-born people is maintained. With these findings, I emphasize the importance of considering race, ethnicity, and nativity in conjunction when studying residential patterns.
Furthermore, these findings highlight the vast intraracial ethnic heterogeneity within the racial category of Black and the consequences of this heterogeneity on neighborhoods. The changes that Black immigrants facilitate within a neighborhood underscore that Black immigrants’ relatively high integration with other Black people is not representative of an ethnic enclave story, as Black is a race, not an ethnicity. Ethnic differences between Black people are salient in the change these neighborhoods undergo.
Still, this study is not without limitations. First, given that I am using publicly available data, I cannot discern between individual-level characteristics that might be a source of heterogeneity in the overall patterns I observe. For example, although country of origin and socioeconomic status are likely important factors that may lead to differential outcomes in how Black immigrants change neighborhoods, as suggested by prior research (Pais, South, and Crowder 2009; Taub, Taylor, and Dunham 1984; Tesfai 2019), here, I collapse all Black immigrants. Second, although the national scope of this study provides a glimpse into how neighborhoods are changing across the United States, I cannot fully explore heterogeneity underlying the observed relationships. Future research can dive deep into particular cities and neighborhoods, and situate these findings in larger historical, political, and social contexts.
Third, because race by nativity is publicly available only from 2000, I am limited to observing changes from the past two decades. However, Black immigration to the United States began earlier in the twentieth century (Hamilton 2019). Therefore, changes may have occurred at the neighborhood level far earlier than I can observe in this study. Finally, this study is limited to considering changes at the tract level. Although I observe diversification at the tract, Black immigrants and the remaining Black native-born residents may continue to be clustered at lower levels of aggregation, maintaining segregation and, likely, the clustering of resources. Due to the data and analytic approach, this study is limited to an analysis of the census tract, but future research, particularly qualitative research, could yield a better understanding of the internal dynamics within census tracts.
These limitations notwithstanding, this study provides a theoretical and empirical entry point for future research to unpack and consider the ramifications of Black immigration on neighborhoods, particularly Black neighborhoods, across the United States. The size and diversity of the Black immigrant population has increased massively in the past several decades. As in the neighborhood in Minneapolis, this study demonstrates that Black immigrants are transforming Black neighborhoods across the United States in nuanced ways. Because the Black immigrant population continues to grow and diversify, this article contributes to our understanding of the complex intraracial spatial dynamics between Black people, how Black immigrants are changing neighborhoods, and our existing theoretical notions of race, nativity, and residential patterns.
APPENDIX
In the following, I consider robustness of results to thresholds defining Black American neighborhoods and presence of groups in a neighborhood.
Sensitivity to Majority Native-Born Black
I consider how the results, particularly for changes in Black native-born and non-Hispanic White residents are sensitive to alternative definitions of a Black native-born neighborhood in 2000. In the main text, I use majority as the definition of these neighborhoods. Here, I consider two additional models: first, I consider whether the socioeconomic status-by-majority intersection varies results. To operationalize socioeconomic status (SES), I consider neighborhoods that are above the median income for Black native-born majority neighborhoods to be high SES, and neighborhoods below the median income to be low SES. In model 3 of tables A.1 and A.2, I show how results vary when interacting with an indicator of whether a neighborhood is majority native-born Black and high or low SES. The omitted category is neighborhoods that were majority native-born Black and high SES in 2000.
In table A.1, model 3 shows that the out-migration of Black native-born residents is most pronounced in the reference category, neighborhoods that were majority native-born Black and high SES in 2000. There is still an out-migration, albeit smaller, in the other majority native-born Black neighborhoods that were low SES in 2000.
Black Immigrant Influx and Black Native Change Sensitivity
In table A.2, model 3 shows a similar pattern: the in-migration of White residents is most pronounced in neighborhoods that were majority native-born Black. There is out-migration in Black minority neighborhoods regardless of the SES.
Black Immigrant Influx and White Change Sensitivity
Next, I consider whether results hold when considering the threshold for a Black native-born neighborhood to be neighborhoods that have greater than a quarter share (25 percent) of native-born Black residents. In model 4 of tables A.1 and A.2, I demonstrate that the patterns of model 2 (the results in the main text) hold when using a lower threshold of 25 percent rather than 50 percent.
Defining Neighborhood Presence
In the second set of results examining how Black immigrant presence relates to the racial trajectory of a neighborhood, I follow John Logan and Charles Zhang (2010) in defining a group as present within a neighborhood if their share exceeds one-quarter of the overall average share. How do results depend on the choice of this criterion?
To test this, I consider two alternative criteria for relative presence. The first is a less demanding 15 percent threshold, where the share of the group is at least as large as 15 percent of the overall group’s share in all neighborhoods in the analytic sample.
Using this more inclusive criterion, results are similar in direction and magnitude to the main text, as shown in table A.3. From non-Hispanic White neighborhoods, White exit is less likely and Black-White integration is more likely in neighborhoods where Black immigrants were present in 2010. From native-born Black neighborhoods, Black exit is more likely as is Black-White integration.
Neighborhood Transitions by Black Immigrant Presence, 10 Percent Threshold
I use a more demanding threshold of 50 percent in table A.4. Here, presence means that the share of the group is at least as large as one-half of the overall group’s share across all neighborhoods. Results differ considerably, as shown in table A.4. From non-Hispanic White neighborhoods, White exit and Black-White integration are both more likely in neighborhoods where Black immigrants were present in 2010 than remaining a neighborhood without native-born Black presence. From native-born Black neighborhoods, Black exit and Black-White integration are both less likely in neighborhoods with Black immigrant presence.
Neighborhood Transitions by Black Immigrant Presence, 50 Percent Threshold
These results demonstrate that the choice of criterion for presence is consequential; although a lower threshold maintains similar results, when a more demanding criterion is instituted, results tell a different story. However, I argue that a 50 percent criterion is too high to best represent the goal of neighborhood presence because it requires, for example, that native-born Black residents become at least 6 percent of a neighborhood and that native-born White residents are at least 35 percent of the neighborhood to be considered present. These requirements may be too high in a typical tract to accurately represent a changed racial and ethnic character in a neighborhood.
Excluding Top Cities of Settlement
Some Black American neighborhoods may be made up fully or mostly of second- or later-generation descendants of Black immigrants and these neighborhoods likely change in different ways to other neighborhoods as Black immigrants increase. However, I cannot observe the ethnic origin of the Black population in each tract. To address this limitation, I remove all tracts in the cities that were in the top 5 percent of the number of Black immigrants in 2000 for the main results (table A.5). In these cities, we would expect that the problem noted here would be most pronounced, as they are more likely to have second-generation and greater Black immigrant neighborhoods. However, even without these cities included, patterns remain similar to the overall results (table A.6).
Black Immigrant Influx and Black Native Change Without Top Cities of Settlement 2000
Black Immigrant Influx and Other Change Without Top Cities of Settlement
FOOTNOTES
↵1 These are my calculations using the 2000 Census and 2016–2020 American Community Survey. Although Hispanic origin is not determined for foreign-born and native-born Blacks, the remaining 18 percent of the neighborhood is mostly non-Black Hispanic.
↵2 Changes determined via Google Street View.
↵3 In the appendix tables, I consider alternative thresholds for presence.
↵4 In the appendix tables, I consider alternative thresholds.
↵5 For parsimony, I consider all non-Black immigrants together, but results are similar when broken down into ethnoracial groups.
- © 2025 Russell Sage Foundation. Dahir, Nima. 2025. “Who Is Black on the Block? Black Immigrants and Changing Black Neighborhoods.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 11(1): 110–31. https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2025.11.1.06. I thank David Grusky, Jackelyn Hwang, Tomás Jiménez, Florencia Torche, the editors and anonymous reviewers, and participants in the RSF Census 2020 Conference for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. Direct correspondence to: Nima Dahir, at dahir.13{at}osu.edu, 238 Townshend Hall, 1885 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH, 43210, United States.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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