Residential Segregation in the Multiracial United States

Pamela R. Bennett, Johns Hopkins University

Most investigations of racial residential segregation study the segregation of whites from African Americans. They report modest declines in black-white segregation in the 1980s and 1990s. The Asian and Hispanic populations of metropolitan America are growing more rapidly than the black and non-Hispanic white populations. Such population growth requires that we pay greater attention to the segregation of these groups. We analyze the segregation of Asians and Hispanics from each other and from blacks and whites using information from Census 2000. Data are examined for the nation’s 331 metropolises and 241 cities of 100,000 or more persons. The correlates of residential segregation are examined with special attention paid to population growth during the 1990s. Additionally, we analyze segregation of the three largest multiple races reported in Census 2000; namely those who identified with both black and white, both Asian and white, and both American Indian and white.