Black, white families in US avoid moving to diverse neighborhoods: study
Carlos Mendoza, age 11, slides through a new outdoor interactive water fountain in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC. The area is one of the District’s most diverse neighborhoods.
A study by the American Sociological Review suggests that while diversity in American cities is growing, few black and white families are moving to ethnically mixed areas, wrote Agence France Presse.
This suggests that self-segregation amongst these two particular groups is still alive, reported LiveScience.
The study looked at “mobility patterns” of blacks and whites that moved between 1977 and 2005. For black families, 43.7 percent moved to mostly black neighborhoods. For whites, 56.8 percent moved to white neighborhoods. The results were even more stark for people moving from already-segregated neighborhoods: 60 percent black families and 75 percent of white families moved from one segregated area to another.
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Kyle Crowder, a lead author of the study, said diverse neighborhoos “are still only a small part of the overall inter-neighborhood mobility picture for blacks and whites."
Still, black families were more likely to move to diverse neighborhoods than whites. 17.7 percent of black families’ moves were to multiethnic neighborhoods; the figure was only 5.6 percent for white families.
"The truth is, when it comes to eliminating residential segregation, we still have a long way to go," Crowder said.
Speaking to LiveScience, Crowder said that segregation "is not necessarily a problem," but rather the inequality of access to education, health, and safe neighborhoods. "[T]hat's where it becomes important," he said.