Municipal underbounding is the process by which cities and towns deliberately avoid annexing unincorporated fringe communities. This study investigates the extent of municipal underbounding in unincorporated Black neighborhoods adjacent to municipalities throughout North Carolina a highly gerrymandered state. To assess if Black unincorporated communities were the target of underbounding I utilized block level demographic data from the 2020 decennial U.S. Census and a spatial typology of municipal boundaries developed by Durst et al. (2021) to distinguish between areas that had been annexed, underbounded, or unaffected by municipal boundary delineations. The extent of gerrymandering at the city and county level was determined by calculating the proportion of underbounded area relative to total city and county area. My analysis shows that municipal underbounding is a complex, nuanced phenomena and throughout North Carolina cities have severely gerrymandered their municipal boundaries to systematically exclude predominately African American unincorporated communities from municipal incorporation. However, the most distinct patterns of racial exclusion are seen in small mostly white municipalities avoiding annexing a predominately Black fringe. This study emphasizes the need for greater oversight of annexation procedures and state compactness standards to minimize future and correct previous discriminatory municipal boundary delineations.
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