Is neighborhood racial succession inevitable? Forty years of evidence

Analysis of compositional changes in the racially mixed neighborhoods (tracts) of 5 large U.S. cities over a 40-year period casts doubt on a central notion of the invasion-succession model: that white-to-black change (succession) is inevitable. The findings indicate that (1) the likelihood of racial succession decreased in all 5 cities from 1970 to 1980, relative to earlier decades, (2) the likelihood of racial stability increased in 4 of the 5 cities during the 1970s, and (3) marked variation exists in patterns of racial change across the cities and decades surveyed. Regional comparisons using 1940-1980 tract data for 38 additional cities strengthen the conclusions based on the 5 case-study locations.