When wealthy white people buy houses in a black neighborhood, their arrival signifies a change for the better. Home values rise, buoyed by the self-fulfilling prophecy that craft breweries and yoga studios will surely follow. Their simple act of purchasing a home made that house—and every other house around it—worth more. But when a blue-collar black man like Wally bought a house, the social meaning was just the opposite: That neighborhood is still “the ghetto.”
