Racial Discrimination and Redlining in Cities

The aim of this paper is to bring together spatial and racial discrimination in an urban framework. While racial discrimination is against black workers, spatial discrimination (or redlining) is against residents living in the city-center. When the relative access cost for black workers to employment centers is sufficiently large, a city is segregated by race. When the relative access cost is sufficiently small, a city is segregated by employment status. By examining the interaction between land and labor markets, the authors find that both race and space are responsible for the high unemployment rate among blacks