He and colleague Bob Margo found that where riots occurred, it “significantly depressed the value of black-owned property between 1960 and 1970, and that there was little or no rebound during the Seventies”.
The violent outbreaks “were adverse shocks with long-lasting and potentially self-propagating effects”, including loss of population. Collins says: “The effects we found were pretty large, and so it wasn’t just a reflection of the amount of property destruction; rather, our interpretation was that the events affected how potential residents, businesses and investors regarded the attractiveness of areas strongly associated with riots, relative to others.”
He is cautious over whether the same lessons can be applied to current outbreaks, as cities 50 years ago were dealing with de-industrialisation and a flight to the suburbs, alongside rioting: “My sense is that cities today have stronger economic fundamentals than they did in the Sixties, which might help them absorb the shocks and rebound more quickly.”
Research into the longer-term impact of the UK’s own 2011 riots – which began in Tottenham with the shooting of Mark Duggan but quickly spread around the country – is thin on the ground. An analysis of business “births” data from the Office for National Statistics hints at a hiatus in business creations in the two main centres of the violence in London, Croydon and Haringey, compared with the capital’s overall trend, before quickly picking up again.
The ONS’s breakdown by borough also shows the unemployment rate among non-white UK-born people almost doubling in Haringey in 2011, and virtually trebling in Croydon, compared with the capital average.