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February 1, 2012

Over the past few days, the ” title=”data” target=”_blank”>data from the last thirteen censuses (going back over 100 years) and discovered some astounding trends. Namely:

  • The most standard measure of segregation reveals that American cities are more integrated today than at any time since 1910—-before the mid-century black migration to our largest cities. 
  • “All-white” neighborhoods are effectively extinct. Fifty years ago 20% of all urban neighborhoods had no blacks residing in them. Today virtually every neighborhood (199 out of 200) has African American residents.
  • Gentrification and immigration are part of the story, but a major cause of the transformation is the suburbanization of America’s blacks.
  • Ghetto neighborhoods persist, but most are in decline.

In a short but fascinating study, Glaeser and Vigdor point out what a complex process the desegregation of American cities has been. It isn’t attributable just to the suburbanization of blacks or the immigration of Latinos or the gentrification of inner city neighborhoods or the ending of malevolent government policies (e.g. the denial of mortgage credit to residents in mixed race neighborhoods or the enforcement of restrictive covenants) or the removal of enormous public housing projects that concentrated poor and minority residents (e.g. Pruitt-Igoe). It is all these and more and the change is enormous.

According to one of the indices used in the study,

Los Angeles has become the least racially isolated large city in America

with an “isolation index” of 22—compared to New York’s 42.4 and Chicago’s 57.5. This index measures the tendency for residents of one group to live in neighborhoods where their share of the population is above the citywide average (the lower the number the less isolated the residents).

The authors remind their readers that in the 1960’s there were those who argued that curing housing segregation would be the key to transforming America; “once the races mixed more readily, all would be well.” It turns out, of course, that there are no silver bullets. Housing segregation is only one part of a very complex and inter-connected series of problems.

There are those who will attempt to find fault with the study to avoid even the hint of good news on the inter-group front. There will also be those who will suggest that few problems remain if we are living side by side. In fact, leave it to John McWhorter in an

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