America's 10 Most Segregated Cities

In three years time, it will have been exactly six decades since the Supreme Court ruled against school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, putting an end to America's dark legacy of so-called "separate but equal" facilities.

But to many, what should be cause for celebration will instead bring home a grim reality: after many years, the racial divide remains.

Steps have been taken to integrate America's communities over the last 40 years, including the passage of a wave of fair housing laws that have helped protect against discrimination. Progress, however, has largely stagnated in the last decade, according to a new report new report entitled "The Persistence of Segregation in the Metropolis" by Brown University professor John Logan and Florida State University professor Brian Stults.

Using 2010 Census data, Logan and Stults studied the racial make-up of America's neighborhoods, finding the results to be uneven in many large cities. While integration improved markedly in some areas like Kansas City, which saw a 7.4 percent decrease in residential segregation over the last decade, New York declined only 1.7 percent. In Miami, segregation actually got worse.

"This is a surprising result," Professor Logan told USA Today in December, before the report's publication. "At worst, it was expected that there would be continued slow progress."

Logan and Stults used a measurement called the Index of Dissimilarity to quantify segregation. Based on a scale of 1-100 -- from perfect integration to complete separation -- the index compares neighborhoods by race. Those cities with the highest levels of segregation, Logan and Stults found, hover around a score of 80, meaning 80 percent of an individual race would have to move so that each neighborhood reflects the racial composition of the city as a whole. (Currently the nationwide Index of Dissimilarity between blacks and whites is 62.7 percent.)

Below are the ten major metropolitan areas with the highest Index of Dissimilarity between black and white America, according to the report.

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10. Nassau-Suffolk, New York

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Comments

[silver9007]

10:34 AM on 05/14/2011

this isn't a study on various cultural and ethnic groups throughout the US. This represents the black and white make-up of these cities only. It really has nothing to do with various ethnic groups wanting to stay in their neighborhood and be around people that speak their language, eat the same food, dress the same, etc. Black people are fully assimilated into American culture, obviously. This illustrates what I've been saying for years - that the South is the most integrated part of the country and although the South has a bad reputation, other parts of the country need the most work as far as racism and integration. Blacks and whites generally live side by side without any problems in the South. The rest of the country would do well to take a lesson from the southern states.

[tdrei53589]

06:37 AM on 05/14/2011

I'm gay. I moved from Kansas City to New York City because I wanted to live in a gay neighborhood. Why can't we have it both ways? Integrate when we want to and keep separate when we want to.

[johnottr28]

12:04 PM on 05/12/2011

People that dont live in New York dont understand how it works. New York was always a city made up of different cities. You can walk 2 blocks in any direction and you will enter a different city. You can go from Chinatown to Little Italy. You have Portuguese neighborhoods along with Ukrainian neighborhoods. New York City is a mosaic. When you ask someone in New York where you are. A native New Yorker will answer not with the street or ave but with which neighborhood you are in.

[Anna Vallone]

09:58 AM on 05/14/2011

That's how its always been in Philly, too.

[SamMetsfan]

12:52 PM on 05/18/2011

On Point! Your comment has now gotten 300 re-tweets and 1500 shares on facebook. Because you, unlike this article, get it!

[sshort41]

05:07 PM on 05/09/2011

I didn't see any surprises in the study and quite frankly don't understand the point. I would say that most people in those cities made that a choice. Perhaps segregation is seen as a negative and I'm not sure if that makes sense. Is there a problem with people wanting to be around those that are similar?

[Lock Piatt]

04:14 PM on 05/08/2011

How could they leave Los Angles off - it is divided by race big time.

[pasc]

12:52 PM on 05/08/2011

This is no surprise. All of the places were places which, historically, experienced the most migration of blacks from the south into urban areas AND which exemplify the widening gulf between rich and poor. There's noting cultural or racial here at all. The entire list is a function of history and economics.

[macrophone]

02:01 PM on 05/07/2011

not a single city from Texas?

[pasc]

12:56 PM on 05/08/2011

No because all except one or two on the list (Nassau-Suffolk and Miami) are based on minority migration over the past 150 years, not on race per se. Even Miami is an immigation thing (although that doesn't explain why no Texas--but historical migration patterns DOES explain all of the others). Every one of those cities are located on major rivers (or transport hubs) that were vital movers of man since before the Civil War.

[Lock Piatt]

04:18 PM on 05/08/2011

Because Texas is very integrated the Hispanics and Blacks are well represented in all areas of the the large cities like San Antonio which is around 50% Hispanic. We are not the Red Necks that progressives like to define us as.

[Michael Allen Powers]

01:13 AM on 05/04/2011

"It is a 1950's notion that you assimilate into a white society and
forget who you are and where you came from. It is a milquetoast mentality, and
many don't understand that long ago, we went from an assimilationist country to
an acculturationist country. If you speak Spanish in your home, or somehow stay
culturally connected to being latino, then you are considered un-American. There are those who confuse American values with simply being white." --Richard Martinez

I think we may have E Pluribus Unum backwards. Perhaps "Out of one, many" describes true diversity better. This frightens some, but a tree doesn't grow into a single trunk -- it branches out. This is how existing cultures change, and new ones are created.

Vive la difference

[anon95982]

08:49 PM on 04/28/2011

Since when are Nassau and Suffolk counties lumped together as one city?

[beelzebubjones]

05:54 PM on 05/15/2011

probably since 1899 or so when nassau stopped being queens county thus joining suffolk county or "lumped" as in surrounded on three sides by water, and not being part of new york city but clearly the eastern suburbs thereof.

[lilipilicious]

09:14 PM on 04/25/2011

I think one of the reasons there are so many problems in this country and it is so messed up is because coupled with the freedoms that are being advertised world wide and the "trying to make" it mentality, there are just too many people from way too many places here. I mean you got folks from all sorts of socio-economic, cultural, ethnic, political, religious and historic backgrounds here - all trying to fit into one nation under one law and reconciling those laws with their backgrounds and values and faith. It will never work and i think there can be a time where there is just too much diversity. I wish it was like in Star Trek where there is infinity diversity in infinite combinations and it's all good, but real life doesnt work this way sadly.

[Arianwen Everett]

10:57 AM on 05/01/2011

America was built on this diversity, so the diversity isn't the problem. The problem is that for most of our history, we had an official standard. There were no laws that said you had to speak English, but if you didn't, you couldn't really survive. There was no rule that you had to interact with people from other cultures, but if you didn't, you would starve to death. No man could be an island. Now we have islands all over the place. People won't learn the language, won't associate with different groups, won't respect each other, and don't want their tax dollars going to help anyone other than their group. Diversity is a strength, but diversity without assimilation or at least plural respect is chaos.

[lilipilicious]

05:03 PM on 05/01/2011

right. So there is such a thing as too much diversity. American didnt emphasize assimilation though - they emphasized integration which can be quite naive when you have so many clashing viewpoints. The US isnt a melting pot - as you said - most "groups" of people have a disdain for the others and there is just too much competition for a finite number of resources and policy issues. This experiment will never work out.

[myplenny]

09:56 PM on 05/04/2011

BS Im Scot my neighbors are Englihs stock. Others various Euro types. Swede across st. One family from Pakistan. They look different from the reast of us. Dress different. They need to dump their stupid customs.

[macrophone]

02:00 PM on 05/07/2011

i totally agree with you.

[Chubbster]

12:29 PM on 04/24/2011

We have a lot of races in this country.
How come we never hear of the dreadful plight of Japanese, Chinese or Korean Americans?

[poobearnb]

03:05 PM on 04/25/2011

Because there are less of these groups, they are typically intermingled in white communities, and they do not share the slave trade history in this country that African-Americans do.

[myplenny]

09:57 PM on 05/04/2011

They are smarter people , right?

[Sandman911]

05:15 PM on 04/19/2011

Wow, some of the most progressive towns in the U.S. Who would have thought.

[pasc]

12:58 PM on 05/08/2011

Segregation can be a two-way street. Chinatown doesn't exist because Asians can't find housing elsewhere. I'm not saying that segregation isn't still a social ill we need to address, but we do need to be fair and admit that sometimes people simply prefer to live where they can walk to a grocery store and get the food their culture prefers.

[Sandman911]

03:55 PM on 05/08/2011

Oh, i agree. The ONLY ones that care about race, or attempt to force integration is GOVERNMENT. Because they're smarter than we are, and if we just give Washington total authority over our lives, things will be better. (SARCASM) That's why the founders limited Washington to only FOUR responsibilities.

[colah]

06:45 AM on 04/16/2011

Warren, Pennsylvania.

[EmboldenedOlden]

01:30 PM on 04/15/2011

I wonder whether this study controlled for economic disparities. With the income gap widening between blacks & Latinos and whites, of course the more expensive neighborhoods will reflect that inequality.The question is, will people still prefer to segregate themselves by race once there is more parity in household income? If so, why? Answering that question will tell us a lot about our American culture.

[poobearnb]

03:07 PM on 04/25/2011

One great example of your question "in action" is Columbus, Ohio. That city has a large African-American middle class and there is definitely less segregation in that city.

[macrophone]

02:03 PM on 05/07/2011

i think it's rather intuitive that people feel most comfortable living around other people with similar backgrounds, values and culture. empirical studies suggest this is the case as well.

[Ricky Allen]

12:06 PM on 04/15/2011

Make no mistake, the south is pretty racist. The only reason that churches are burned and there aren't minorities strung up every night is the fact that it is really "illegal" now. All of you racists are idiots and you are teaching your children to be idiots too. I have encountered people claiming to hate people of color and guess what, when they actually got out of bumf**k arkansas and interacted with people of other cultures, they realized that some of those people that they hated were better than their lynching buddies.


read and do something good today...
help the less fortunate...

http://afriendneedshelp.blogspot.com/

[Sandman911]

05:18 PM on 04/19/2011

Sorry Charlie, if your looking for racism, look up the history of progressivism.
http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html
http://www.suite101.com/content/woodrow-wilson-and-white-supremacy-a126787
http://gopcapitalist.tripod.com/democratrecord.html

[myplenny]

09:59 PM on 05/04/2011

Never seen a lynching. Seen many blacks murder blacks. Is that better?