America Becoming Racial Trends and Their Consequences: Volume I (2001) / Chapter Skim
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13. Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Conditions in U.S. Metropolitan Areas
13. Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Conditions in U.S. Metropolitan Areas
Pages 391-434
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From page 391... ...
As group members build up time in the city, however, and as their socioeconomic status rises, they have tended to move out of these enclaves into areas that offer more amenities and improved conditions areas in which majority members are more prevalent leading to their progressive spatial assimilation into society. The twin processes of immigrant settlement, on the one hand, and spatial assimilation, on the other, combine to yield a diversity of segregation patterns across groups and times, depending on the particular histo391
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From page 392... ...
Such high indices of residential segregation imply a restriction of opportunity for Blacks compared with other groups. Discriminatory barriers in urban housing markets mean individual Black citizens are less able to capitalize on their hard-won attainments and achieve desirable residential locations.
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From page 393... ...
The isolation index shows that in the South, most Blacks lived in rural counties that were approximately 45 percent Black, yielding a high degree of segregation and racial isolation at the county level as well. The dissimilarity index for 1900 reveals that nearly 70 percent of all Blacks would have had to shift their county of residence to achieve an even racial distribution across county lines.
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From page 394... ...
By 1910, however, the eight cities listed in Table 13-1 had an average index of 56, and the level of Black-White dissimilarity increased sharply
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From page 395... ...
By 1930, however, the geographic structure of segregation had changed dramatically, shifting from state and county levels to the neighborhood level. The average isolation index was now 39 in neighborhoods, indicating that most Black residents in the cities under study lived in a ward that was almost 40 percent Black.
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From page 396... ...
At the county level, indices of Black-White dissimilarity varied narrowly from 46 to 48, while the degree of Black isolation increased slightly from 23 to 26. At the neighborhood level, however, Black segregation continued to increase from 1950 to 1970, although at a decelerating pace that reflected the high level of racial segregation already achieved.
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From page 397... ...
DOUGLAS S MASSEY TABLE 13-2 Indices of Black-White Segregation Computed at Four Geographic Levels, 1950 to 1990 397 Years 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 Between states Dissimilarity 42 34 28 28 28 Isolation 20 18 16 17 17 Between counties Dissimilarity 52 49 47 48 46 Isolation 27 24 23 26 26 Between cities (>25,000)
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From page 398... ...
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 theoretically put an end to housing discrimination; however, residential segregation proved to be remarkably persistent (Massey and Denton, 1993:186-216~. Among the 12 cities shown in Table 13-2, the average segregation index fell slightly from 1970 to 1990, going from 83 to 75, but Black isolation indices hardly changed.
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From page 399... ...
Among the northern metropolitan areas shown, there is little evidence of any trend toward Black residential integration. Black segregation indices averaged about 85 in 1970,80 in 1980, and 78 in 1990, a decline of only 8 percent in 20 years.
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From page 400... ...
400 RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND NEIGHBORHOOD CONDITIONS TABLE 13-3 Trends in Black Segregation and Isolation in the 30 Metropolitan Areas with the Largest Black Populations, 1970 to 1990 Dissimilarity Indices Metropolitan Isolation Indices 1970a 1980a l990b 1970a 1980a l990b Northern Boston, MA Buffalo, NY Chicago, IL Cincinnati, OH Cleveland, OH Columbus, OH Detroit, MI Gary-HammondE. Chicago, IL Indianapolis, IN Kansas City, MO Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA Milwaukee, WI New York, NY Newark, NJ Philadelphia, PA Pittsburgh, PA St.
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From page 401... ...
In 1990, six metropolitan areas Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Gary, New York, and Newark had isolation indices of 80 or more, meaning that most Black people lived in neighborhoods that were more than 80 percent Black. Detailed analyses of neighborhoods show, however, that this overall average is misleading, because it represents a balance between a small minority of Blacks who reside in highly integrated neighborhoods and a large majority of Blacks who live in all-Black neighborhoods (Demon and Massey, 1991~.
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From page 402... ...
In general, then, Black-White segregation scores in the South appear to be converging on indices from 60 to 70, yielding an average of 67 and maintaining the traditional differential compared with the North. Metropolitan areas with segregation indices higher than the 60 to 70 range in 1970 experienced decreasing segregation, whereas those with indices less than 60 to 70 displayed increasing segregation; and those with indices within that range did not change much.
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From page 403... ...
From 1970 to 1990, there was relatively little change in the overall degree of Black isolation, with the average index decreasing from 69 in 1970 to 65 in 1990. In four southern areas Baltimore, Memphis, Miami, and New Orleans the Black isolation index was more than 70 in both decades; and in Birmingham, the index of Black isolation rose from 45 to 70 between 1970 and 1990.
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From page 404... ...
404 RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND NEIGHBORHOOD CONDITIONS TABLE 13-4 Trends in Hispanic Segregation and Isolation in the 30 Metropolitan Areas with the Largest Hispanic Populations, 1970 to 1990 Dissimilarity Indices Metropolitan Area 1970a 1980a l990b Isolation Indices 1970a 1980a l990b Hispanic majority Brownsville-Harlingen, TX 54.0C 42.0d 39.8 NA NA 85.2 Corpus Christi, TX 55.9 51.6 47.5 63.5 63.6 67.8 E1 Paso, TX 49.6 51.2 49.7 71.5 74.1 80.0 McAllen-Pharr, TX 62.0C 48.0d 37.9 NA NA 87.4 Miami, FL 50.4 51.9 50.3 46.5 58.3 73.4 San Antonio, TX 59.1 57.2 53.7 67.5 67.5 69.1 Average 55.2 50.3 46.5 62.3 65.9 77.2 Other metropolitan Albuquerque, NM 45.7 42.5 41.9 54.4 50.6 53.4 Anaheim-Santa Ana, CA 32.0 41.6 49.9 19.4 31.0 50.1 Bakersfield, CA 50.8 54.5 55.4 34.9 42.1 55.7 Chicago, IL 58.4 63.5 63.2 25.1 38.0 51.3 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX 42.5 47.8 49.5 18.6 24.0 41.1 Denver-Boulder, CO 47.4 47.4 46.5 27.4 27.5 33.8 Fresno, CA 40.8 45.4 47.8 37.6 44.6 58.7 Houston, TX 45.3 46.4 49.3 26.9 32.8 49.3 Jersey City, NJ 54.8 48.8 42.9 34.5 46.5 56.0 Los Angeles, CA 46.8 57.0 61.1 37.8 50.1 71.5 Nassau-Suffolk, NY 29.1 36.2 42.3 6.0 9.6 22.1 New York, NY 64.9 65.6 65.8 36.1 40.0 66.6 Newark, NJ 60.4 65.6 66.7 16.7 26.3 48.5 Oxnard-Simi Valley, CA NA NA 52.3 NA NA 51.2 the total population, a condition that does not hold for any of the Black communities listed in Table 13-3.
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From page 405... ...
Isolation indices of 85 and 87 in Brownsville and McAllen mainly reflect the fact that Hispanics represent 82 and 85 percent of the metropolitan populations, respectively. Even if Hispanics were evenly distributed, high levels of Hispanic-White contact are impossible to achieve in areas that are so predominantly Hispanic.
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From page 406... ...
Although Hispanics constitute 48 percent of San Antonio's population, its Hispanic-White dissimilarity index of 54 is less than that for Black-White indices in any northern area; and San Antonio's Hispanic isolation index of 69 is less than it is for 7 of the 18 Black isolation indices. A better indication of what happens to Hispanics in U.S.
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From page 407... ...
By way of contrast, only eight of the 30 Black communities examined earlier had Black isolation indices less than 60. Although contemporary demographic conditions suggest trends toward high segregation and rising isolation among Hispanics, they still do not display the high index ratings characteristic for Blacks in large urban areas.
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From page 408... ...
Despite rapid immigration and population growth, Asian segregation indices remained quite moderate in 1990. Increases observed between 1980 and 1990 simply restored the indices to their 1970 levels, yielding little net change over the two decades.
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From page 409... ...
The isolation index of 46 means that Asians in the Bay Area are more likely to share a neighborhood with non-Asians than with each other; and in Los Angeles, which received the highest number of Asian immigrants between 1970 and 1990, the isolation index rose to just under 41. Thus, the largest and most segregated Asian communities in the United States are much less isolated than the most integrated Black communities.
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From page 410... ...
Within this set of areas, the Black-White dissimilarity index averaged 82, the average isolation index was 71, the mean clustering index was 58, the mean centralization index was 88, and the average concentration index was 83. By way of contrast, neither Hispanics nor Asians were hypersegregated within any metropolitan area.
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From page 411... ...
As already pointed out, the percentage of Hispanics and Asians who are hypersegregated is zero. EXPLAINING THE PERSISTENCE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION A variety of explanations have been posited to account for the unusual depth and persistence of Black segregation in American cities.
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From page 412... ...
Thus evidence suggests that racial segregation in urban America is not a voluntary reflection of Black preferences. If it were up to them, Blacks would live in racially mixed neighborhoods.
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From page 413... ...
When the Black percentage reaches 20 percent, one-third of all Whites say they would be unwilling to enter, 30 percent would feel uncomfortable, and 15 percent would seek to leave. A neighborhood about 30 percent Black exceeds the limits of racial tolerance for most Whites; 59 percent would be unwilling to move in, 44 percent would feel uncomfortable, and 29 percent would try to leave.
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From page 414... ...
This demand escalates as the Black percentage rises toward 50 percent, the most preferred neighborhood configuration; beyond this point, Black demand stabilizes and then falls off as the Black percentage rises toward 100 percent. The pattern of White, Asian, and Hispanic demand for housing in racially mixed areas follows precisely the opposite trajectory.
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From page 415... ...
Racial discrimination was institutionalized in the real estate industry during the 1920s and well established in private practice by the 1940s (Massey and Denton, 1993~. Evidence shows that discriminatory behavior was widespread among realtors at least until 1968, when the Fair Housing Act was passed (Helper, 1969; Saltman, 1979~.
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From page 416... ...
review of studies conducted in metropolitan Boston and Denver during the early 1980s, Black home seekers had between a 38 and a 59 percent chance of receiving unfavorable treatment, compared to Whites, on any given real estate transaction. Through various lies and deceptions, Blacks were informed of only 65 of every 100 units presented to Whites, and they inspected fewer than 54 of every 100 shown to Whites.
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From page 417... ...
studied six real estate firms located in Cincinnati and Memphis and found that racial steering occurred in roughly 50 percent of the transactions sampled during the mid-1980s. As in the Detroit study, homes shown to Blacks tended to be in racially mixed areas and were more likely to be adjacent to neighborhoods with a high percentage of Black residents.
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From page 418... ...
The typical advertised unit was located in a White, middle-to-upperclass area, as were most of the real estate offices; remarkably few homes were in Black or racially mixed neighborhoods. Even after controlling for the social and economic composition of its neighborhood, the percentage of Black residents was a strong predictor of whether a unit was advertised at all (Turner et al., 1991~.
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From page 419... ...
Using data from the 1977 HUD audit study, Galster (1986) related cross-metropolitan variation in housing discrimination to the degree of racial segregation in different urban areas.
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From page 420... ...
The most complete and systematic data on the treatment of Hispanics in urban real estate markets comes from HUD's 1988 HDS (Yinger, 1995~. Results from this study indicate that the overall incidence of housing discrimination was greater for Hispanics than Blacks in the sales market (42 versus 34 percent)
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From page 421... ...
As a result of their continued racial segregation, however, the spatial concentration of poverty was especially severe for Blacks (Massey and Eggers, 1990; Massey et al., 1991; Krivo et al., 1998~. High levels of income inequality paired with high levels of racial or ethnic segregation result in geographically concentrated poverty, because the poverty is localized in a small number of densely settled, racially homogenous, tightly clustered areas, often in an older, urban core abandoned by industry.
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From page 422... ...
Given the interaction between racial segregation and the changing socioeconomic structure of American society, the issue of race cannot be set aside to focus on the politics of race versus class. A1though the implementation of policies that raise average incomes, lower income inequality, and reduce class segregation would lower the spatial isolation of the urban poor, policies to promote the desegregation of urban society would probably have an even greater effect, given segregation's critical role in determining how these factors generate concentrated poverty.
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From page 423... ...
Datcher (1982) estimates that moving a poor Black male from his typical neighborhood (66 percent Black with an average annual income of $8,500)
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From page 424... ...
People who grow up and live in environments of concentrated poverty and social isolation are more likely to become teenage parents, drop out of school, achieve low educations, earn lower adult incomes, and become involved with crime either as perpetrator or victim. One study has directly linked the socioeconomic disadvantages suffered by individual minority members to the degree of segregation they experience in society.
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From page 425... ...
Given the central role that residence plays in determining one's life chances, these results suggest the need to incorporate the effects of racial segregation more fully into theories about the perpetuation of poverty and the origins of the urban underclass. These results also suggest the need to incorporate desegregation efforts more directly into public policies developed to ameliorate urban poverty.
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From page 426... ...
A special unit dedicated to the regular administration of housing audits should be created in HUD under the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Audits of randomly selected realtors should be conducted annually within metropolitan areas that have large Black communities, and when evidence of systematic discrimination is uncovered, the department should compile additional evidence and turn it over to the Attorney General for vigorous prosecution.
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From page 427... ...
The agreement originally established a network of housing resource boards to enforce the Fair Housing Act with support from HUD; during the Reagan Administration, funds were cut and the agreement was modified to relieve realtors of responsibility for fair-housing enforcement. New regulations also prohibited the use of testers by local resource boards and made secret the list of real estate boards that had signed the agreement.
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From page 428... ...
Bertram, S 1988 An Audit of the Real Estate Sales and Rental Markets of Selected Southern Suburbs.
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From page 429... ...
1991 Residential preferences and neighborhood racial segregation: A test of the Schelling segregation model. Demography 28:1-19.
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From page 430... ...
American Sociological Review 59:23-45. 1996 Latino, Asian, and Black segregation in U.S.
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From page 431... ...
1983 Report of an Audit of Real Estate Sales Practices of 15 Northwest Chicago Real Estate Sales Offices. Chicago: Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities.
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From page 432... ...
American Sociological Review 44:1015-1022. 1981 Hispanic residential segregation: A comparison of Mexicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans.
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From page 433... ...
Logan 1982 Suburban racial segregation and Black access to local public resources. Social Science Quarterly 63:762-770.
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From page 434... ...
Eggers 1979 Measuring Racial Discrimination in American Housing Markets: The Housing Market Practices Survey. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
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