For blacks in America, the gap in neighborhood poverty has declined faster than segregation.
Black residential segregation has been declining in the United States. That accomplishment rings hollow, however, if blacks continue to live in much poorer neighborhoods than other Americans. This study uses census data for all US metropolitan areas in 1980 and 2010 to compare decline in the neighborhood poverty gap between blacks and other Americans with decline in the residential segregation of blacks. We find that both declines resulted primarily from narrowing differences between blacks and whites as opposed to narrowing differences between blacks and Hispanics or blacks and Asians. Because black-white differences in neighborhood poverty declined much faster than black-white segregation, the neighborhood poverty disadvantage of blacks declined faster than black segregation-a noteworthy finding because the narrowing of the racial gap in neighborhood poverty for blacks has gone largely unnoticed. Further analysis reveals that the narrowing of the gap was produced by change in both the medians and shapes of the distribution of poverty across the neighborhoods where blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians reside.
Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 firebaugh@psu.edu fya5038@psu.edu.
Glenn
0000-0002-3097-4477
G
Firebaugh
Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 firebaugh@psu.edu fya5038@psu.edu.
Francesco
F
Acciai
D001741:Black or African American; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006798:Housing; D006801:Humans; D011203:Poverty / Q000639:trends*; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D000072699:Social Segregation / Q000639:trends*; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population; D044465:White People
Gini index; neighborhood poverty; racial inequality; residential segregation