Examining racially concentrated areas of affluence

Contemporary federal housing policy in the United States has largely focused on racially segregated areas with high levels of poverty, known as racially concentrated areas of poverty (RCAPs). In this podcast, Ed Goetz, professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, examines the other side of this dynamic—concentrated areas of white affluence. Goetz, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, discusses his work to identify and understand racially concentrated areas of affluence (RCAAs).

"When we started our study, we were actually responding to advocates for low income communities who maintained that this single-minded focus on their communities problematized their communities, stigmatized their communities, and ignored the other half of the segregation formula—which is of course the ability and tendency of white people to seclude themselves into neighborhoods," says Goetz. "So we tried to look at the other side of the coin."