RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN HOUSING CONSUMPTION DURING THE 1970s: INSIGHTS FROM A COMPONENTS OF INVENTORY CHANGE ANALYSIS

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Abstract
New construction, existing structures, and losses are macro-level components of the housing inventory that, while significant structural determinants of housing opportunities, are rarely analyzed in a conceptually unified framework. Such a framework is presented and national data are utilized to identify the consumption rates of white and black households in each component during the 1970s, a period when housing markets tightened considerably. With some important exceptions, whites consumed new housing at higher rates than blacks, and blacks were more often the last to occupy housing removed from the inventory. Consumption patterns within existing structures suggest that filtering occurred among all households when markets were open (beginning of period) and among households of the same race when markets tightened (end of period). When markets tightened, evidence of of nonfiltering emerged among whites replacing blacks—gentrification—and among blacks replacing whites—black households being of higher income than the white households they replaced.