Racial Displacement in Greenville, SC

The city of Greenville is changing, particularly West Greenville, a cultural anchor among the city's historically Black neighborhoods. This area is home to Greenville’s largest civic project in decades, Unity Park: 60-acres of public space dedicated to recreation and public gathering. Using publicly available data (primarily from the US Census), and powerful geographic analytical techniques, we’ve looked at change in this area and across Greenville to help our community look back and look forward. Our geographic lens has focused on the 13 neighborhoods identified by the city as Special Emphasis Neighborhoods (SENs). As 8 out of the 13 SENs fall within a one-mile radius of Unity Park, we also highlight change in this area. The Special Emphasis Neighborhood designation is unique to the City of Greenville. It refers to areas in which 51% or more of households earn less than 80% of area median income. The SEN designation was created to give historic Black communities a say in how their neighborhoods would be revitalized as well as special protections against unwanted development. But as we will show, the outcome was not entirely as planned.

Did you know that?

Over the past 30 years . . .

1. Greenville's historic Black neighborhoods have seen a 53% decline in number of Black residents. 2. The white population in those same neighborhoods has nearly doubled. 3. The 1-mile radius surrounding Unity Park has lost 47% of its Black residents. 4. One of Greenville's oldest Black neighborhoods, Haynie-Sirrine, has seen an 85% decline in Black population.

Our goal is to explore this change in detail, starting with historical context—the story of racial exclusion through racially restrictive covenants, which are described and mapped below. Most recent data from the US Census provides rich detail, up through 2021, and insights about neighborhood and county-wide change.

We start with history.

Like many cities built around manufacturing, Greenville, SC saw a boom in the post-WWII period. As the self-proclaimed “Textile Capital of the World,” the area saw a steady increase in population to meet the demand of the local mills and their auxiliary industries. Viewed from afar, the benefits of this economic growth were widespread. However, a closer look at the map shows that not all neighborhoods benefited equally.

While the city of Greenville as a whole was booming, Black neighborhoods were not. This was because a variety of discriminatory real estate tactics were used that created segregated pockets of poverty that ringed the city. One of the most powerful of these tactics was the creation of restrictive covenants.

Racially restrictive covenants are clauses that are written into property deeds that prevent a specific property from being sold to, rented to, or otherwise inhabited by any Black family. In some cases throughout Greenville County, entire subdivisions were cut off to Black residents.

Keep in mind, racially restrictive covenants are not unique to the Greenville area. Covenants were used to segregate communities across the country. If you’d like to learn more about their historical origin and lasting consequences, there has been considerable research done on the topic, one example being the book,  The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America . Today, researchers across the country are poring over historical archives to unearth and map these racially restrictive covenants still on the books in their communities. A few years ago,  the Greenville News published a story on this topic  that features a few examples in the area. A team of researchers at Furman University has recently completed the most comprehensive catalog of racially restrictive covenants listed in Greenville County to date. This task is one part of  Furman University’s Seeking Abraham Project  that set out to research the University’s historical connections with slavery.

In the summer of 2021, researchers began searching through all 900 of Greenville County's property deed books (containing ~ 400,000 property deeds) between years 1900 and 1968. Researchers used key search terms to flag property deeds that included racially restrictive language. They then recorded all relevant information from the deed in a database so that they could be mapped.

After searching an estimated 400,000 property deeds, researchers found over 12,000 instances of racially restrictive covenants included in property deeds in Greenville County.

Below is an example of one of the thousands of property deeds that were analyzed by Furman researchers and flagged for containing racially restrictive language.

The text of the racially discriminatory section of the deed: "The said premises shall not for a period of ninety years from date hereof be occupied, rented, leased or any manner used by Greeks or colored person or persons, or sold to Greeks or colored person or persons ..."

Below is a dynamic map of Greenville County's subdivisions where property deeds from 1900 -1968 contained racially restrictive covenants. Even though these covenants were ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court in 1948 ( Shelley v. Kraemer ), many subdivision developers in Greenville County continued to write them into closing documents.

The purple circles on the map below indicate subdivisions where racially restrictive covenants have been found in property deeds. The larger the purple circle, the more racially restrictive property deeds were found at that location. Explore neighborhoods throughout the county in the map below or use the magnifying glass in the upper left corner to check for the presence of racially restrictive covenants near your home. When you click on a purple circle, you will find: the subdivision name, a sample of the racially discriminatory language written into specific deeds, the dates they were filed, and how many racially discriminatory deeds were found.

While racially restrictive covenants helped create exclusively white neighborhoods, they did not forbid some whites from living in or near historically Black neighborhoods. Up until 1960, what we think of today as Black neighborhoods actually contained up to 30% white residents. This would soon change.

As the textile industry in Greenville began to decline due to offshoring and automation, the population began to drop as well. White households began leaving the urban core for the suburbs.

This historical process, which urban scholars refer to as “white flight,” is not unique to Greenville. Rather, it occurred across the country in urban areas undergoing economic transitions.

While  scholars disagree on the precise motivations behind why so many white households decided to leave city centers , the demographic pattern as told by population counts during that time period is quite clear: the number of white residents in urban areas decreased just as their numbers dramatically increased in neighboring suburban areas.

As white residents began leaving the city center, neighborhoods that once housed some white residents became almost exclusively Black. This demographic shift had wide ranging consequences. In any area, if population declines quickly, so does the need for housing. With less demand, prices drop. And as property values spiral downward, so does the economic incentive to repair and refurbish homes. The final result: dilapidation and blight. These are the simple laws of supply and demand and the reason why the housing stock in Black neighborhoods in city centers across the country was subject to decay and demolition in the post WWII period, what scholars often refer to as a period of “urban decline” in America. For a more thorough explanation of “urban decline” and its relation to “white flight” in American history, see  this report from the Urban Institute . Explore the graph below of the City of Greenville’s population over time to trace this pattern. Note the decline of white residents starting in 1960. See the rapid rise in white residents since 2010.

When the City of Greenville's population began to decline starting in the 1960s, suburban municipalities experienced just the opposite. Their populations began to rise quickly. One example of this phenomenon can be seen in the nearby municipalities of Mauldin, Simpsonville, and Fountain Inn.

See population data documenting the demographic shift of the white population of Greenville County from the city to the suburbs with this case study of the Golden Strip.

To document the demographic shift of the white population of Greenville County from the city to the suburbs, we present population data from the neighboring areas of Mauldin, Simpsonville, and Fountain Inn—colloquially known to locals as "The Golden Strip."

By the 1980s, a number of cities across the country were looking for ways to get people and businesses to return to the urban core. Planners and local governments throughout the nation began seeking ways to encourage development that included a mix of residential, commercial, and recreational development. This movement is often referred to as  “New Urbanism”  and it influenced many developments in Greenville, SC.

Whereas the 60s and 70s saw the growth of the suburbs, the pendulum of investment eventually swung back to Main Street. In Greenville, notable public and private partnerships that marked this movement include: the narrowing of Main Street in 1979, the opening of the Hyatt hotel in 1982 and the Peace Center in 1991, and the creation of the Liberty Bridge in Falls Park in 2003. Greenville soon became a destination for residents looking for a place to live, work, and play in the same urban space.

By 2010, the city population began to increase rapidly. But this new revitalization produced some new demographic patterns throughout the city.

While revitalization was in full swing around Main Street, the traditionally Black neighborhoods that circled the city were slower to recover. Still reeling from generations of population decline and its effects on the housing stock, vacant lots were common. These available properties, because of their proximity to Main Street, began to increase in value. Recognizing the need to spread the benefits of revitalization across all neighborhoods, the City of Greenville identified and targeted 13 historically Black neighborhoods and labeled them as “ Special Emphasis Neighborhoods .” To become eligible, these neighborhoods had to have at least 51% or more of households earn less than 80% of area median income. Once qualified, these communities would receive extra protections and assistance when it came to zoning and planning decisions. Yet, despite these efforts to assist the “Special Emphasis Neighborhoods” in Greenville, these communities have seen a consistent loss of Black residents year after year.

Measuring racial displacement is challenging because traditional community boundaries do not always align with t hose designed by the US Census (known as census “tracts” or census "block groups" ).

Researchers at Furman have calculated the loss of Black residents in a more precise way than previously reported in official City documents using decennial census data at the census block level, which is often the same as ordinary city blocks. Utilizing census block-level data for decennial census years has allowed us to aggregate the data to Special Emphasis Neighborhood boundaries, which often don't align neatly with larger, standard boundaries like block groups and census tracts.

In the data below, the population data exactly aligns with the boundaries of the  Special Emphasis Neighborhoods , like those you see in colors on this map below, because it was gathered from the decennial census at the block level. More specifically, researchers at Furman were able to count the number of people within all of the city blocks that make up each of the Special Emphasis Neighborhoods. These census "blocks" (which often have the same boundaries as city blocks) should not be confused with census "block groups" which are larger.

Although our population data is very precise, we need to be more cautious with data on median household income, which is aggregated at the census tract level. Census tracts, which are larger than census blocks or block groups, can be seen outlined in black on the map below. Census tracts can be good approximations of Special Emphasis Neighborhoods, but are not exact. See below for an example of how traditional neighborhood boundaries do not always fit perfectly within US Census boundaries.

Sometimes neighborhoods do not always fit census boundaries perfectly. In the map below, compare the boundaries of a few  Special Emphasis Neighborhoods  with official census tract boundaries.

To measure median income and median income by race, researchers at Furman University studied both census tracts and even smaller geographic units of measurement, census “block groups.” Block groups contain a number of individual city blocks. Explore the map below to click on and highlight neighborhoods. Look for the solid black lines to indicate where census tract boundaries are and dotted lines to see where census block group boundaries help refine our data. See how these neighborhoods fit within the City of Greenville boundaries.

While the revitalization of the City of Greenville resulted in rapid increases in population and property values, the consequences for Greenville’s traditionally Black neighborhoods have been mixed.

In the past 30 years, the number of Black residents in Greenville’s Special Emphasis Neighborhoods has declined by 53%.

Our data suggest that while most Black residents displaced from traditionally Black neighborhoods were still able to find residences in the City, the decline in the overall Black population of the City as a whole has been slow and steady since 1990, a 22% overall decrease.

The graph below is a population aggregate of all the Special Emphasis Neighborhoods combined. These data are very precisely fit around the neighborhood boundaries. Researchers at Furman University used decennial census data at the block level to calculate these figures, which are more accurate than contemporary City reporting.

To explore this graph, toggle racial categories on and off to isolate different groups. Click the arrow in the upper right hand corner of the graph to open entire graph in a new tab.

If you don't see your neighborhood listed in the data below, you can explore demographic and economic changes in all the traditionally Black neighborhoods of Greenville at this link:

If you need a reminder of where these neighborhoods are located, you can jump back to the map that compares their geographic boundaries with census tract and block group boundaries here:

For a sample of the demographic changes occurring in four of Greenville's thirteen Special Emphasis Neighborhoods, see the graphs below for the following communities: West End, Haynie-Sirrine, Nicholtown, and Southernside. Note the sharp decline in the Black population compared to the recent rise in the white population.

The data below show that while the revitalization of Greenville has produced increases in incomes in the city as a whole, Black residents’ incomes in the Special Emphasis Neighborhoods have remained stagnant.

While there has been stability, and in some cases discernable gains, in overall income in the Special Emphasis Neighborhoods, breaking those numbers down by race tells a clearer story of income disparities.

This pattern of economic inequality by race repeats in all of the Special Emphasis Neighborhoods. Below is another example from the traditionally Black neighborhood of Haynie-Sirrine. The rise in overall income is largely driven by an influx in wealthier white households.

Haynie-Sirrine is another example of how increases in overall income masks the clear disparities when that data is divided by race.

The graphs below show the consistency of this pattern. The overall rise in incomes within the Special Emphasis Neighborhoods gives the impression that the revitalization of Greenville has benefitted all residents uniformly. However, calculating median household incomes by race in those traditionally Black neighborhoods tells a different story: racial integration without economic integration.

While the revitalization of Greenville has been a dramatic success in terms of increasing overall population and income, these benefits have not been enjoyed by all city residents. Traditionally Black neighborhoods scattered around Greenville today were not a random occurrence. They were created by a variety of historical discriminatory real estate tactics. Research conducted by Furman documents one tactic in particular: racially restrictive covenants.

These racially restrictive covenants created and preserved exclusively white spaces that forbid Blacks from acquiring property. Eventually, these covenants became unenforceable and illegal—but their legacy lives on.

The decline of the textile industry hurt everyone in Greenville. Public and private sector investment in the urban core dropped significantly. At the same time, roadway and utility infrastructure paved the way to the suburbs and enabled a nationwide “white flight” out of city centers. In Greenville, we depict that pattern with population data to show how population declines among white residents in the City of Greenville occurred during the same time as population increases in white residents in suburban municipalities (like "The Golden Strip"). Left behind and abandoned, historically Black neighborhoods saw a steady reduction in population and a deterioration of their housing stock. These declines set the stage for the gentrification that was to come. This phenomenon has occurred all over the country, and Greenville is no exception. With the rise of “New Urbanist” mixed-use developments, white households began returning to city centers across the country in the 1990s and early 2000s. The reinvestment in Main Street in Greenville made the cheaper properties in the nearby Black communities an attractive real estate opportunity.

The increasing racial income disparities in what Greenville now calls its Special Emphasis Neighborhoods are clearly evident in the census tract level data. Given these numbers, the number of incoming white residents in traditionally Black Neighborhoods will continue to rise as they become the only people who can afford rising rents and home values.

This is a clear example of gentrification as defined as "renewed racial integration without economic integration" that is occurring across the country. Put plainly, wealthy white families are moving into historically Black neighborhoods that ring the City of Greenville. Their newfound interest in places they once avoided is increasing property values beyond what the existing Black population can afford.  

The irony of Greenville’s “revitalization” is that the most significant racial displacement is taking place in the same “Special Emphasis Neighborhoods” the City of Greenville specifically set out to protect.    This is the demographic and economic history of Greenville as told by data collected by the US Census Bureau.

Dr. Kolb is the chair of Furman University’s Sociology Department. Dr. Kolb's research interests include food insecurity, racial inequality, and urban sociology. His work with students was instrumental in the reconstruction of the Hampton Avenue Pedestrian Bridge in Greenville, which reconnected communities that had been geographically separated for a decade. His most recent book,  Retail Inequality: Reframing the Food Desert Debate , featured extensive research in the Greenville neighborhoods of Southernside and West Greenville.

Mike Winiski is the director of the Center for Applied Sustainability Research at Furman University's Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities. Winiski specializes in community engagement, faculty development, and spatial analysis. One of Mike's recent projects include an assessment of gentrification in Greenville County utilizing census demographic data, housing data, and interviews from community focus groups.

Sam Hayes works as a GIS Analyst and Project Coordinator for Furman University’s Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities. At the Shi Institute, Hayes focuses on researching the built environment and effects of human decisions on minority and low-income communities in Greenville, SC. Some projects that he has worked on include mapping affordable housing in Greenville County, researching racially restrictive covenants from the early 20th century and mapping them, and classifying and mapping eviction in Greenville County. In fall of 2022, Sam began a graduate program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in City and Regional Planning.

Catherine Lippert works as a GIS Analyst and Project Coordinator for Furman University’s Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities. Lippert collaborates with community partners to use GIS to provide data analysis that helps partners make decisions as they work towards sustainable solutions to social issues such as food insecurity, eviction, and lack of affordable housing in Greenville County. One of Catherine’s most recent projects was the creation of the Greenville County Food Insecurity Index. The index uses census data to identify neighborhoods in Greenville County most at risk of food insecurity so that emergency food providers can deploy their food resources where they are most needed. In fall of 2022, Catherine began a graduate program at the University of South Carolina in Earth and Environmental Resource Management.

Sydney Andersen works as a post-baccalaureate GIS analyst and data specialist for Furman University’s Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities. Her research focus includes the effects of development on equity in Greenville County. She is currently part of a Carolinas Collaborative on Climate, Health, and Equity (C3HE) grant to secure climate resilience and equity in the Carolinas. The C3HE project fosters community engagement to help local groups develop their own resilient solutions to climate change. Andersen is partnering with Dr. Geoffrey Habron and undergraduate student teams to coordinate community input and solutions from areas identified as Special Emphasis Neighborhoods in Greenville. Andersen contributed to updated data visualizations for this project.

1. Data for municipalities, like the City of Greenville, are aligned with the municipal boundaries for a given time period. For example, population data for 1960 is reported for the city boundaries as they were in 1960, and so on. It’s true that some of the population changes are due in part to those changing boundaries. However, an analysis of 2020 block-level data for the city and a comparison of 2010 and 2020 city boundaries reveals that changing city boundaries don’t account for all of the growth of white population in the City of Greenville between 2010 and 2020. The white population grew by 9,728 during that time. However, only 1,088 of those individuals are present in the expanded city boundaries between 2010 and 2020. Therefore, annexation only accounts for approximately 11% of that growth. 
2. Our population data exactly aligns with the boundaries of the Special Emphasis Neighborhoods, like those you see in colors on this map. However, the data on median household income is aggregated at the census tract level, which can be seen outlined in black on this map. Census tracts can be good approximations of Special Emphasis Neighborhoods, but are not exact.
3. Tract 7 covers a different geography, prior to 2000. Data prior to 2000 are excluded to avoid inappropriate comparison. Data for 2010, 2015, and 2021 are from ACS 5-year estimates, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, and 2017-2021, respectively. Data for 2000 is from the census long form, for which margin of error was not reported.
4. Data for 2010, 2015, and 2021 are from ACS 5-year estimates, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, and 2017-2021, respectively. Data for 2000 is from the census long form, for which margin of error was not reported.
5. Tract 4 covers a different geography, prior to 2000. Data prior to 2000 are excluded to avoid inappropriate comparison. Data for 2010, 2015, and 2021 are from ACS 5-year estimates, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, and 2017-2021, respectively. Data for 2000 is from the census long form, for which margin of error was not reported.
6. For tract 4 income-by-race graph, data for 2009, 2015, and 2019 are from ACS 5-year estimates, 2005-2009, 2011-2015, and 2015-2019, respectively. Note that 2020 or 2021 data are not shown on the income-by-race graph for tract 4. This is because for tract 4, data were unavailable for median income for Black households from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2016-2020 and 2017-2022). For more information about why data may be missing (also known as data suppression),  see the following information from the US Census.  Data for 2000 is from the census long form, for which margin of error was not reported.
7. Tract 43 covers a different geography, prior to 2010. Data prior to 2010 are excluded to avoid inappropriate comparison. Data for 2010, 2015 and 2021 are from ACS 5-year estimates, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, and 2017-2021, respectively.
8. Data for 2010, 2015 and 2021 are from ACS 5-year estimates, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, and 2017-2021, respectively.
9. For tract 9, data for 2010, 2015, and 2021 are from ACS 5-year estimates, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, and 2017-2021, respectively. Data for 1980, 1990, and 2000 are from the census long form, for which margin of error was not reported.
10. Note that 2015 data are not shown on the income-by-race graph for tract 9. This is because for tract 9, data were unavailable for median income for white households from the American Community Survey 5-year estimate for 2011-2015. 2020 data (2016-2020) are shown, instead of 2021, because data for Black households is unavailable in the 2017-2021 estimates. For more information about why data may be missing (also known as data suppression),  see the following information from the US Census.