Why Do Twin Cities Have Lowest Rate of Black Home Ownership In the Country?

The Associated Press has analyzed census data for demographic patterns relating to home ownership. Various conclusions can perhaps be drawn from the data, but what jumps out at you if you live in Minnesota is that the Twin Cities have the lowest rate of African-American home ownership of anywhere in the country. Here is the AP’s chart, showing highest and lowest rates of African-American home ownership:

The Twin Cities are dead last, by a wide margin, despite the fact that whites in the Twin Cities have one of the highest rates of home ownership. Note, too, that the places where African-Americans have the highest home ownership rates are in much more conservative areas: Jackson, Mississippi; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Columbia, South Carolina; Birmingham, Alabama; and so on. Of course, those are also places that have had substantial African-American populations for considerably longer than the Twin Cities.

Still, no one could look at these data without wondering: do the Twin Cities have by far the lowest rate of African-American home ownership in the country *despite* decades of liberal policies, or *because of* decades of liberal policies?