(MONEY Magazine) – Whether they choose to live in the suburbs or the city, blacks often pay steep financial and quality-of-life costs that whites do not. Two examples: Larry Tucker, 47, and his wife Gwendolyn, 42, were second-guessed by more than a few black and white friends in 1979 when they decided to put up $48,000 to build their dream house in the Willard Homewood section of the urban Northside of Minneapolis. The racially mixed, middle-income neighborhood falls within the broader 55411 zip code -- where most of Minneapolis' 60,400 blacks live, an area that is often associated with poverty and crime. The average sales price in the Northside has risen only 25% since 1979. Says Larry, a real estate appraiser who runs his own firm with Gwendolyn: ''We were cautioned about putting so much money into a home here and about the possibility of crime moving into our backyard.'' But the couple wanted to be in the heart of the black community and still have their children -- Larry Derrick, now 26, Lori, 25, Monica, 20, and Veronica, 11 -- interact with white kids as well as blacks. So the Tuckers took out a $60,000 mortgage to build their $108,000 five- bedroom split-level contemporary there. Now, a decade later, their house has just been appraised at only $105,000. By contrast, the median sales price in Minneapolis/St. Paul climbed by 45% during the same period. Yet the Tuckers stand by their decision and chide former Northsiders who fled for whiter pastures. ''I have a real problem with this type of attitude,'' says Larry. ''Black people here don't realize that in other communities the schools may be better, the homes may be nicer, businesses may thrive, but it's the people who stay there that make all these things happen.'' Some 1,500 miles away in the Brownsville neighborhood of Miami, retirees Wilbur and Evelyn Vickers, 63 and 60, also pay a price for living in a black urban area. A former Pan Am porter and a housekeeper, the couple own a modest three-bedroom ranch on a 12,100-square-foot lot that cost them $9,500 when they moved there 34 years ago. Today, the Vickerses would be lucky to get $40,000, though similar houses in the white suburbs of Kendall and Miami's Coconut Grove are going for $150,000 to $250,000. The problem is that the area, which was once mainly working class, now falls prey to theft and other drug-related crime -- as does nearby Liberty City. Indeed, across the street ) from the Vickerses stands the charred shell of an abandoned house taken over and stripped by crack addicts last summer. The threat of crime adds to the couple's everyday expenses too. Insurance for their 1983 Cadillac Coupe de Ville and 1980 Buick Regal costs about $1,600 a year, or roughly $375 more than if they lived in a mostly white, rural community locally like Homestead. And though they spend $295 a year for homeowners insurance, the couple have been unable to get additional coverage against theft for Evelyn's 100-piece collection of antique crystal, china and porcelain. They were forced therefore to spend $3,000 on security bars for the windows and heavy iron gates for their sliding-glass doors. The high cost of business insurance in Brownsville gets passed on to residents as well. For example, Evelyn says that if she shopped at the small neighborhood grocery, she would pay double the price than at the Publix supermarket she goes to 45 minutes away in Coral Gables. In addition, neighborhood dry cleaning costs run about 30% more than in other parts of Miami as well. Furthermore, though Wilbur's 42 years with Pan Am qualifies them for free air passage, vacationing poses problems for the Vickerses. ''My parents would never say this,'' explains their 40-year-old son Milton, ''but they don't want to leave their house for a week or two for fear someone would break in. They've become complete prisoners of their home.''