A drive through Atlanta’s older “intown” residential areas quickly bears out new Census findings: That segregation by race in the US is fading in many, though far from all, American neighborhoods.

Atlanta is one of several predominantly Southern and Western cities that showed a noticeable integration trend over the last five years as both middle-class blacks and whites moved into each other’s neighborhoods, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey of 10 million Americans, released Tuesday. The ACS is the largest demographic survey ever done in the United States.

The shift is part of a “complicated story with lots of nuances” that includes changes in social attitudes, the emergence of new housing and economic opportunity, and an age gap that shows young America is dramatically more diverse ”“ and open to diversity ”“ than older generations, says Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire, in Durham.

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The recession and housing costs cause many to move in together to help meet ends

The Grundy family seemed headed down the conventional path for American families: Daughter goes to college, graduates, gets a job and her own apartment.

Then something happened.

“She lost her job,” Vel Grundy says about daughter Monika, 25. “She kept looking and got very, very discouraged. She moved back home.”

Grown children returning home. Brothers and sisters moving in together. Families taking in grandparents. Friends living in the basement. Fueled by the dismal economy and high unemployment, more Americans ”” friends and families ”” are doubling up.

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