Work

Patterns of Racial Diversity and Segregation in the United States: 1990–2010

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: The growing ethnic and racial diversity of the United States is evident at all spatial scales. One of the striking features of this new mixture of peoples, however, is that this new diversity often occurs in tandem with racial concentration. This article surveys these new geographies from four points of view: the nation as a whole, states, large metropolitan areas, and neighborhoods. The analysis at each scale relies on a new taxonomy of racial composition that simultaneously appraises both diversity and the lack thereof (Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012). Urban analysis often posits neighborhood racial segregation and diversity as either endpoints on a continuum of racial dominance or mirror images of one another. We disturb that perspective and stress that segregation and diversity must be jointly understood-they are necessarily related, although not as inevitable binary opposites. Using census data from 1990, 2000, and 2010, the research points to how patterns of racial diversity and dominance interact across varying spatial scales. This investigation helps answer some basic questions about the changing geographies of racialized groups, setting the stage for the following articles that explore the relationship between geography and the participation of underrepresented groups in higher education.

Source: The Professional Geographer

DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2012.735924

Authors: Richard Wright, Mark Ellis, Steven R. Holloway, Sandy Wong

Institutions: Dartmouth College, University of Washington, University of Georgia, The Ohio State University

Language: English

Topic: Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funder: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development