Racial Segregation in US Metropolitan Areas and Cities, 1990–2000: Patterns, Trends, and Explanations

This report provides a comprehensive overview of 1990 and 2000 neighborhood dissimilarity indices measured for Blacks and Whites, Asians and Whites, and Hispanics and Whites among the nation’s 318 metropolitan areas, as well as 1220 places with populations exceeding 25,000 in 2000. Unlike most earlier studies which measure segregation on the basis of census tracts, this study measures segregation across smaller block-groups, which constitute closer approximations to neighborhoods. For both metropolitan areas and places, we find broad trends, some countering those of earlier decades. Black-White segregation is declining fairly consistently for most metropolitan areas and cities. Hispanic-White segregation is on the increase for about half of the cities, and most metropolitan areas. Yet, Asian-White segregation is on the decline in most metropolitan areas and places. The latter counters the steady increases in Asian-White segregation over the 1980s. Despite these pervasive patterns, many changes for individual areas are small, preserving the long-standing national ‘pecking order’ of segregation for different racial and ethnic groups. This study evaluates social, economic and demographic metropolitan area factors associated with metropolitan level segregation. In a unique analysis, it also evaluates both metropolitan and place level contextual effects on segregation in individual places, located within metropolitan areas. The results show that location in metropolitan areas that are ‘multi-ethnic’—with strong representation of two or more minority groups—tends to be associated with declining levels of Black-White segregation at both the metropolitan area level and at the city level. The metropolitan multi-ethnic context has less consistent effects on the segregation levels of other raceand ethnic groups. However, given the continued clustering of Hispanics and Asians in different metropolitan areas across the country and their continued mixing within those metropolitan areas, these findings suggest that significant linkages exist between metropolitan demographic shifts and city segregation dynamics Data Used: 2000 and 1990 US Census