Racial Integration in Urban America: A Block Level Analysis of African American and White Housing Patterns

I just came across an interesting article "Racial Integration in Urban America: A Block Level Analysis of African American and White Housing Patterns"

" A recent report on Exposing Urban Legends: The Real Purchasing Power of Central City Neighborhoods, conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute for The Brookings Institution, examined the damage that marketing firms do to cities by ranking neighborhoods based on average household income from richest to poorest and then using racial and other stereotypes that steer retail businesses away from central city neighborhoods. This study examines the basis for the segregation index, which has been used historically to compare urban areas, in order to determine why Milwaukee was ranked as the 3rd most segregated metro area in the U.S. and to assess the strengths and limitations of the formula used to calculate the rankings. "

Conclusion

"This block level analysis raises serious questions about the white-black dissimilarity segregation index historically used to rank metropolitan areas and its assumptions about the lack of integration occurring in many cities with large African American populations. No single statistic or set of statistics can capture the complex population mix and levels of integration and segregation in urban America, and current segregation rankings of cities and metropolitan areas - while popular in the media - appear to offer little insight into the configuration of neighborhoods in cities with large African American populations. Given housing preferences and electoral successes of African Americans in majority black neighborhoods and cities, emphasis on even dispersal of African Americans throughout each metropolitan area can hardly be considered a national goal with broad-based consensus. Further, in-migration of Latino and Asian populations has brought increasing diversity to urban neighborhoods. In this context, integration may appropriately be defined as successful mixing of diverse populations, rather than the continued dominance of neighborhoods by an urban white majority.

Much of the United States remains racially segregated, with almost a third of the African American population living on blocks that are more than 90 percent black and over half of the white population living on blocks that are more than 90 percent white. The data for Milwaukee and other metro areas clearly suggest the need for remedial efforts to combat racial discrimination and racial steering in housing; to support affirmative housing opportunities, particularly for low and moderate income African American families interested in moving into suburban areas; and to provide public and private support for integrated and diversified neighborhoods.

The implicit goal of the segregation index, that is, integrating urban America by diluting the population of black residents in individual neighborhoods, is one, however, which requires serious reexamination. This preliminary development of an alternative measure of integration - which views black and white populations as equal partners in the integrating process - is a first step toward articulating goals that may assist cities in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their population mixes. Public policy makers are encouraged to use block level 2000 Census data to develop other tests of racial integration and to develop new measures of diversity in order to identify and address the racial challenges of the 2000s."