| Abstrakt: |
The blockbuster is a legendary figure in urban real estate, a manipulative fear peddler who brought Black residents to white neighborhoods for the purpose of frightening whites into selling their homes at a loss, which the blockbuster could then resell to Blacks on extortionate terms. This paper challenges the construction of "blockbusting" as a social problem, and questions whether actors using such tactics existed as they have been represented. Using archival research and interviews as part of a larger project on an African American suburb of Baltimore, the research finds that historically significant accounts of blockbusting are suspect, and that the definitions of blockbusting focused more on simple racial transition than actual problems such as racially biased lending practices. Instead, data suggest that real estate brokers who sold properties to African Americans did not engage in fear tactics and were less discriminatory in their practices than mainstream realtors, and that the "blockbuster" was conjured as a convenient scapegoat for white residents' resistance to the arrival of Black neighbors. Instead of focusing on an imagined blockbuster, a better understanding of residential racial transition is achieved by focusing on the housing needs and housing market experiences of African Americans seeking homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
