In Logan and Zhang’s “Global Neighborhoods: New Pathways to Diversity and Separation,” they expanded on a phenomenon in cities that they called the buffer effect. Put simply, it says that communities of white and black people will not last for long because the white people of that community will leave if they feel there is too large of a black presence. The only time that white and black people will live together in a community is if Latinos and Asians move into the white community first. For some reason, this makes it more appealing for blacks to move into what used to be mostly white communities. These mixed communities are said to be unstable because the white populations eventually leave after the blacks come.

As I read about this, several familiar neighborhoods came to mind. One that is close to home in my case is a development complex called LeFrak City. LeFrak City is a collection of 20 apartment buildings that was built in the 1960s to bring some of luxurious aspects of city living into Queens. The development had a pool, a park, a grocery store, and many other such luxuries that attracted some of the wealthier people of Queens. At first, the majority of the residents were wealthy and Jewish. This was the case until Mayor Lindsay designated parts of the complex as affordable housing and he worked to incorporate welfare recipients into the apartments.

The majority of the new tenants that came pouring into Lefrak were low-income blacks. The wealthy Jewish people who lived there beforehand fled in large numbers. In my childhood in Elmhurst, I’ve met many people who currently live in LeFrak, and I’ve noted that the majority of the tenants are black or Hispanic. I’ve also noted a hesitance from other white people to go too close to LeFrak because of a perception of danger that they have about the area.

Through the years, the population of LeFrak has changed from mostly black to nearly half black and half Hispanic. Since this has been true, I feel like there is a slightly better perception of LeFrak by whites in the area. This is obviously different from the view they held of LeFrak in the 1970s, when the buildings were utterly crime and drug ridden. This change in perception bothers me somewhat because it implies that race plays a key role, but nonetheless, it is a clear cut example of how the buffer effect plays a role in tensions between white and black populations in a community.