A series of social and economic events across the 20th century led to the emergence of a class of very poor African Americans whose experiences were different from those of other African Americans and others considered disadvantaged (Farley & Frey, 1994; Massey, Gross, & Shibuya, 1994; Kasarda, 1995; Squires, Velez & Taeuber, 1991; Wilson, Tienda, & Wu, 1995). In the early 20th century, over 1.3 million African Americans relocated from the Southern United States to the Northern, Midwestern, and Western areas to escape hardships, prejudice, and to pursue jobs, particularly those then available in factories, due to the large increase in the manufacturing industry (Christmon, 1995; Harper, 1976; James & Johnson, 1996). Policies were developed during this time to ensure the physical separation of African Americans from European Americans in residential areas, restricting housing options for African Americans to the least desirable residential areas (Cell, 1982; Fix & Struyk, 1993), thus leading to physical segregation. In the mid-1970s an era of deindustrialization took place, during which many jobs disappeared or left the inner city, resulting in a reduction in the
