Drawing on a survey of residents of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the authors compare African-Americans and whites in terms of their perceptions of the special advantages of the central city and the suburbs as places to live and their overall preferences for the one or the other. Although a broad transracial consensus prevails in most respects about the pluses and minuses of living in the city or the suburbs, some substantial differences also emerge. Moreover, African-Americans and whites seem to weigh these factors differently in forming general preferences about where to live. This pattern of similarities and differences holds out intriguing implications for the development of metropolitan areas.
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