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Black Middle-Class Neighborhoods In Louisville Through Multiple Lenses., Jamar M. Wheeler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an articles-based, mixed methods study that analyzes Black middle-class neighborhood attainment in Louisville. Racialized social structure theory is the theoretical framework that is employed to make sense of the adverse positionality of Black middle-class neighborhoods. Racialized social structure theory posits that individuals are placed in racial categories that are hierarchically arranged, which, at the neighborhood level, translates to White and Black householders advancing their material interests in competing ways. These competing interests are asymmetrical in terms of power relations, which means that the neighborhood choices of the Black middle-class are constrained by the routinized ways that the …