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Distinguishing the geographic levels and social dimensions of U.S. metropolitan segregation, 1960–2000

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Demography

Abstract

In this article, we assess trends in residential segregation in the United States from 1960 to 2000 along several dimensions of race and ethnicity, class, and life cycle and present a method for attributing segregation to nested geographic levels. We measured segregation for metropolitan America using the Theil index, which is additively decomposed into contributions of regional, metropolitan, center city—suburban, place, and tract segregation. This procedure distinguishes whether groups live apart because members cluster in different neighborhoods, communities, metropolitan areas, or regions. Substantively, we found that the segregation of blacks decreased considerably after 1960 largely because neighborhoods became more integrated, but the foreign born became more segregated largely because they concentrated in particular metropolitan areas. Class segregation increased between 1970 and 1990 mainly because the affluent increasingly clustered in specific metropolitan areas and in specific municipalities within metropolitan areas. The unmarried increasingly congregated in center cities. The main purpose of this article is to describe and illustrate this multilevel approach to studying segregation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Survey Research Center, University of California, Berkeley

    Claude S. Fischer, Gretchen Stockmayer, Jon Stiles & Michael Hout

Authors
  1. Claude S. Fischer
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  2. Gretchen Stockmayer
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  3. Jon Stiles
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  4. Michael Hout
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Correspondence to Claude S. Fischer.

Additional information

The authors thank Cid Martinez and Caroline Hanley for their assistance and John Logan for his advice and some of his data. We also thank the editor and reviewers of Demography for their helpful comments. This article is part of the Century of Difference Project, sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation. Because of space considerations, a document with extended methodological appendices can be found on the project’s web site (http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/rsfcensus) or obtained from us on request.

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Fischer, C.S., Stockmayer, G., Stiles, J. et al. Distinguishing the geographic levels and social dimensions of U.S. metropolitan segregation, 1960–2000. Demography 41, 37–59 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2004.0002

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