(CSM) Census: Segregation hits 100-year lows in most American metro areas

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.

Read it all.

print

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, * International News & Commentary, America/U.S.A., Census/Census Data, Economy, Race/Race Relations, The U.S. Government