Residential segregation is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level".Kawachi, Ichiro and Lisa F. Berkman. Neighborhoods and Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. page 265 While it has traditionally been associated with racial segregation, it generally refers to the separation of populations based on some criteria (e.g. race, ethnicity, income/class).Eric M. Uslaner, "Producing and Consuming Trust". Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 115, No. 4 (Winter, 2000-2001), pp. 569-590
While overt segregation is illegal in the United States, housing patterns show significant and persistent segregation along racial and class lines. The history of American social and public policies, like Jim Crow laws, exclusionary covenants, and the Federal Housing Administration's early redlining policies, set the tone for segregation in housing that has sustained consequences for present-day residential patterns.
Trends in residential segregation are attributed to discriminatory policies and practices, such as exclusionary zoning, location of public housing, redlining, disinvestment, and gentrification, as well as personal attitudes and preferences. Residential segregation produces negative socioeconomic outcomes for minority groups, influencing disparities in wealth, educational opportunity, access to health care and food, employment, and safety. Public policies for housing reform, like the Housing Choice Voucher program, attempt to promote integration and mitigate these negative effects, but with mixed results.
History In the early 1900s, U.S. cities were largely integrated, with working-class, typically immigrant, White families often living in the same neighborhoods as working-class Black families. However, the early 1930s marked the beginning of discriminatory housing policies. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted New Deal reforms that involved segregating some of these integrated working-class neighborhoods. To combat a housing shortage due to the Great Depression, FDR started public housing projects for working-class families, all of which were segregated, and most of which were limited to White people. World War II brought an influx of workers to cities looking for jobs, increasing the number of public housing projects. White projects tended to be built in already residential neighborhoods, while Black projects tended to be built on the outskirts of these areas, displacing Black families out of residential centers where they had previously lived. In 1949, Congress passed the 1949 Housing Act, which explicitly stated that the government could fund segregated housing projects. Beginning in the 1940s, the Federal Housing Administration created programs that encouraged White families to move into suburban neighborhoods by providing affordable mortgages, with racially restrictive covenants barring Black families from buying houses in these White neighborhoods. White families benefitted greatly from these programs, as it provided them with economic stability and accumulation of wealth due to increasing real estate values. As White families moved out of urban housing projects, previously White-only public housing projects allowed Black families to move in. Public housing became dominated by working-class Black families, who had limited access to employment and economic opportunities. These discriminatory housing policies are responsible for the racial wealth gap and persistent residential segregation between White and Black households today: the average Black family makes about 60% of the average White family's income, while the median net worth of a Black family is 10% of a White family's net worth.
Recent trends The index of dissimilarity allows measurement of residential segregation using census data, with values ranging from 0 to 100, where 0 indicates no segregation and 100 means complete segregation. It uses United States census data to analyze housing patterns based on five dimensions of segregation: evenness (how evenly the population is dispersed across an area), isolation (within an area), concentration (in densely packed neighborhoods), centralization (near metropolitan centers), and clustering (into contiguous ghettos).Denton, N.A. (2006). "Segregation and discrimination in housing." In A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda, eds. Rachel G. Bratt, Michael E. Stone, and Chester Hartman, 61–81. Philadelphia: Temple University Press Hypersegregation is high segregation across all dimensions.
Another tool used to measure residential segregation is the neighborhood sorting indices, showing income segregation between different levels of the income distribution.Watson, T. (2005). Metropolitan growth and neighborhood segregation by income. Seminar Paper, Department of Economics, Williams College. Retrieved: December 6, 2011 from: https://web.williams.edu/Economics/seminars/watson_brook_1105.pdf
Racial An analysis of historical U.S. Census data by Harvard and Duke scholars indicates that racial separation has diminished significantly since the 1960s. Published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the report indicates that the dissimilarity index has declined in all 85 of the nation's largest cities. In all but one of the nation's 658 housing markets, the separation of black residents from other races is now lower than the national average in 1970. Segregation continued to drop in the last decade, with 522 out of 658 housing markets recording a decline.Edward Glaeser, Jacob Vigdor. "The End of the Segregated Century: Racial Separation in America's Neighborhoods, 1890–2010". Manhattan Institute, Number 66, January 2012
Despite recent trends, Black communities remain the most segregated racial group. The dissimilarity-index indices in 1980, 1990 and 2000 are 72.7, 67.8, and 64.0, respectively.Iceland, J., Weinberg, D.H., and Steinmetz, E. (2002). Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States: 1980–2000, U.S. Census Bureau, Series CENSR-3. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved: October 9, 2011 from https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/housing_patterns/pdftoc.html Black people are hypersegregated in most of the largest metropolitan areas across the U.S., including Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. For Hispanics, the second most segregated racial group, the indices from 1980, 1990 and 2000 are 50.2, 50.0, and 50.9, respectively.
Hispanics are highly segregated in a number of cities, primarily in northern metropolitan areas. Segregation for Asians and Pacific Islanders has been consistently low and stable on the Index of Dissimilarity over the decades. The indices from 1980, 1990 and 2000 are 40.5, 41.2 and 41.1, respectively. Segregation for Native Americans and Alaska Natives has also been consistently the lowest of all groups and has seen a decline over the decades. The indices from 1980, 1990 and 2000 are 37.3, 36.8 and 33.3, respectively.
Income Analysis of patterns for income segregation come from the National Survey of America's Families, the Census and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Both the index of dissimilarity and the neighborhood sorting indices show that income segregation grew between 1970 and 1990. In this period, the Index of Dissimilarity between the affluent and the poor increased from .29 to .43.
Poor families are becoming more isolated. Whereas in 1970 only 14 percent of poor families lived in predominantly poor areas, this number increased to 28 percent in 1990 and continues to rise. Most low-income people live in the suburbs or central cities. When looking at areas classified as "high-poverty" or "low-poverty" in 2000, about 14% of low-income families live in high-poverty areas and 35% live in low-poverty areas.Turner, M.A. and Fortuny, K. (2009). Residential Segregation and Low-Income Working Families. Urban Institute. Retrieved: October 12, 2011 from http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/411845_residential_segregation_liwf.pdf
Combined More than half of all low-income working families are racial minorities. Over 60% of all low-income families lived in majority white neighborhoods in 2000. However, this statistic describes the settlement patterns mainly of white low-income people. Black and Hispanic low-income families, the two most racially segregated groups, rarely live in predominantly white or majority-white neighborhoods. A very small portion of low-income white families lives in high-poverty areas. One in three black low-income families live in high-poverty areas while one of every five Hispanic low-income families lives in high-poverty areas.
Housing demographics Homeownership National trends for homeownership show a general upward trend since the 1980s, with a 2010 rate of 66.9%. , 71% of Whites were homeowners. The rates for Black, Hispanic, and all other racial groups remain consistently and significantly below the national average, with homeownership rates in 2010 of 45%, 48%, and 57%, respectively.U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Housing Vacancies and Homeownership Annual Statistics: 2010. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved: November 19, 2011 from https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/annual10/ann10ind.html Looking at all homeowners in 2007, about 87% are White.Schwartz, A.F. (2008). Housing Policy in the United States. New York: Routledge, 22. Low-income individuals are less likely to be homeowners than other income groups and pay a greater portion of their income on housing. Individuals living in poverty represent a very small portion of homeowners.
Rental Census information on renters shows significant disparity between the races for renters. Of all renters, about 71% are white, 21% are black, 18% are Hispanic and 7% are Asian. Renters are generally less affluent than homeowners. From 1991 to 2005, the percentage of low-income renters increased significantly.
Influences on segregation Current trends in racial and income based residential segregation in the United States are attributed to several factors, including:
Historical housing discrimination Exclusionary zoning practices Location of public housing Discriminatory homeownership practices Neighborhood disinvestment Gentrification Attitudes and preferences towards housing location
These factors impact both racial and class-based segregation differently.
Exclusionary zoning
Exclusionary zoning influences both racial and income-based segregation.
Racial zoning Incidents of exclusionary zoning separating households by race appeared as early as the 1870s and 1880s, when municipalities in California adopted anti-Chinese policies. For example, an 1884 San Francisco ordinance regulated the operation of laundries, which were a source of employment and gathering places for Chinese immigrants. The ordinance withstood several legal challenges before the U.S. Supreme Court eventually struck it down because of its anti-Chinese motivations.
The prominent real estate developer J.C. Nichols was famous for creating master-planned communities with covenants that prohibited African Americans, Jews, and other races from owning his properties.