In my continuing posts on segregation, I am adding lists of the least and most segregated metro areas for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. I’m posting the least segregated metros for each group here at Alas, and I’ll post both the least and most segregated cities at Rachel’s Tavern.
This post is a follow-up to an earlier post, you can look at this post from a few days ago where I discuss the different dimensions of residential segregation. That post discusses a few of the methodological issues, and it links to the Census Bureau report where the data comes from. So if you are confused about the differences, between clustering and exposure (for example), you can get more information from that post. If you link to the actual Census report, they show statistical formulas that are used in calculating segregation using each method described. They also discuss other issues related to measuring segregation.
You should also keep in mind this is only measuring segregation for Blacks, and it’s only measuring urban segregation. I am preparing future posts Asians, Latinos and Native Americans.
All data comes from the US Census Bureau
5 Most Even Metro Areas (cities where blacks are most evenly spread; the statistical formula represents the percent of people who would have to move for the group to be evenly distributed across the metro area)
- Orange County, CA
- San Jose
- Phoenix, Mesa
- Riverside, San Bernadino, CA
- Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News
5 Highest Exposure Metros (cities where blacks have highest chance of having contact with whites)
- Orange County, CA
- San Jose
- Portland, Vancouver
- Phoenix, Mesa
- Seattle, Bellevue, Everett
5 Least Concentrated Metros (cities where blacks are least densely concentrated/most spread throughout the metro area)
- Orange County, CA
- Atlanta
- Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News
- Phoenix-Mesa
- Cincinnati
5 Least Centralized Cities (cities where blacks are least concentrated in the central core of the city)
- Nassau, Suffolk (Long Island, NY)
- Orange County, CA
- Oakland, CA
- Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater
- Newark
5 Least Clustered Cities
- Orange County, CA
- San Jose
- Phoenix, Mesa
- Portland, Vancouver
- Seattle, Bellevue, Everett
The 10 Least Segregated Cities (Averaging all five dimensions of segregation)
- Orange County California
- San Jose
- Norfolk-Virginia Beach
- Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater
- San Diego
- Providence, Fall River, Warwick
- Seattle, Bellevue, Everett
- San Antonio
- Oakland, CA
- San Francisco
A few notes final notes:
The western US does very well, in particular California’s suburban areas. Southern cities do better than most people would expect. They tend to be in the middle of the pack, but they lean toward the less segregated side. I also think the centralization measure really doesn’t work well when the metro area is a suburban area, since they are not organized around a central core. The Nassau Suffolk area, only scores well on centralization because the 3-4 towns with large black populations are not close to each other, and there is no central area since it is all suburbs. In fact, that same metro area is the 10th most segregated on eveness (which is the most commonly used measure of segregation). Atlanta is also an interesting case because it does very well on concentration, which reflects the large number of predominantly black suburban areas in Atlanta. However, the reason Atlanta doesn’t do as well on the other measures is because the individual towns themselves are often relatively segregated.
I know some people will be tempted to say, hey I’ve been to _____ and it is fairly segregated. Keep in mind this is just how the cities compare to each other, and the segregation numbers for African Americans are considerably higher than they are for all other minority groups. For example, in Orange County, CA, which is by far the least segregated area on almost every dimension, 37% of African Americans would have to move to other areas for African Americans to be evenly spread throughout the area. The overall average number of people who would have to move for the group (we’re talking ALL metro areas) to be evenly spread throughout the metro area is 64% for blacks, 50% for Latinos, 41% for Asians, and 33% for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
I’m wondering why they put San Bernardino and Riverside together like that, given how different demographically the two cities are including the spread.
And if they are counties, even more so, because both counties are fairly racially segregated.
As for Orange County, the population of African-Americans is very small. But as that county becomes more and more Latino, Whites are fleeing eastward.
I’ve seen similar measures before, and what the less segregated places have in common is their newness — that is, the percentage of population growth that has occurred since laws against overt and not-so overt discrimination in residential housing have taken hold. This is why Northern cities do so poorly. By and large, residential housing patterns in places such as Milwaukee were established when segregation (de facto or de jure) was the norm. Moreover, the growth rate in these cities has been de minimis — so there are fewer “new” neighborhoods that are up for grabs. Sure, you can buy a house in an established neighborhood, but you look around and see you are the only Black person among a lot of older White people — whereas, even in Charlotte, NC, for instance, you move to a new development and it’s either not settled, or there are a smattering of Black and White people. So you aren’t deterred from buying on the grounds of racial exclusivity. Now if only we could overcome the suburban sprawl that is also common to these places. Not likely.
Barbara, I tend to agree with you that many of the less segregated cities have had more recent population growth, and as Radfem notes many of these cities have relatively small black populations. The issue isn’t so much how old the city is, but what have the more recent population trends been. Cities that experienced growth during the industrial era, approximately 1890-1970, tend to be tremendously segregated, where as those who have seen growth after that era tend to be less segregated.
Radfem,
These are set up as metro areas, actually the Census calls them standard metropolitan statistical areas,” but they general are cities and their surrounding suburbs. They also have smaller divisions called micropolitan areas, but they are too small to be in this analysis. That is why you see some cities together.
The Norfolk/ Newport News area is pretty dominated by the military, which I suspect has a big influence on residential segregation or the lack thereof.
I have a lot of family in that area and have been going there since I was a kid, and I’ve definitely noticed that the area is increasingly racially integrated. It’s particularly interesting given that white people in the region really intensely resisted any sort of integration in the ’50s and ’60s. There were school districts in the area that shut down entirely rather than integrate.
Pingback: racism - Page 108 - Bowlie
Pingback: Preaching Dreams vs. Preaching Nightmares « Far Outliers