Economic Consequences of 1960's Race Riots
Virginia Postrel finished off the year with this article in the New York Times reviewing a study on the economic consequences of the 1960's race riots. The analysis looks at two specific consequences, the labor market and property values. Postrel summerizes, "In cities with major riots, the economists find that the median black family income dropped by about 9 percent from 1960 to 1970, compared with similar cities without severe riots. This impact on the labor market may have actually been more severe in the long run. From 1960 to 1980, male employment in cities with severe riots dropped four to seven percentage points, compared with otherwise similar cities." And on property values, "The impact on property values is even more striking. In cities with severe riots, Professors Collins and Margo found, the median value of black-owned homes dropped 14 percent to 20 percent, compared with cities that experienced little or no rioting, from 1960 to 1970. The median value of all central-city homes, regardless of owner, dropped 6 percent, to 10 percent. "

Not surprisingly, "the two economists find that cities without riots did significantly better economically over the long run." The long term trends since Truman abandon the Jim Crow faction of his party (he was rewared with a third party challenger in 1948) have been for black incomes to converge with white incomes, and opportunities broadly, but net worth of black families remains low. Part of this is the longer accumulation of wealth by white families (transfered intergenerationally by inheritance) but a substantial portion of the black accumulation was destroyed in the riots.