ABSTRACT
For decades, neighborhood racial transition from White to Black/African American has been characterized as blockbusting, accompanied by expectations of rapid, dramatic declines in property values, income, and public services. My research on Randallstown, a Black/African American suburban community that grew around the Liberty Road commercial corridor in Baltimore County, Maryland, indicates that since the early 1970s, racial transition in this community has followed a pattern different than blockbusting. That pattern is produced by two opposing forces. The first is the civil rights movement, in which Black/African American activists, residents, and allied institutions broke the color line and gained entry for Blacks/African Americans into previously segregated suburbs where residents sought to create secure, stable communities. The second force is neoliberalism, 1 the political and economic policy that has defined capitalism in the U.S. and abroad since the 1970s. Neoliberalism has been characterized by governance through crisis (Klein 2007).
