African Americans' search for "more for less" and "peace of mind" on the exurban frontier

African Americans increasingly are moving from inner cities and inner-ring suburbs to fast-growing exurbs on the urban fringe, trends that media reports attribute primarily to their desire to live affordably as homeowners in safer communities. Little empirical evidence exists to support these claims, although research on the drivers of postwar black suburbanization and a burgeoning exurban migration literature suggest that desires for ownership and housing space, to escape inner-city poverty concentration, and to create "places of their own" may be contributing factors. Through interviews with 70 African Americans who moved from Los Angeles County to its fast growing exurban Inland Empire between 1980 and 2010, this research shows how race- and context-specific factors, such as affordable housing shortages, gang violence, and Latino occupancy of historically black communities, are contributing to black population growth on the urban fringe.