Article: racial segregation increases in some places, with implications to police controversies

[ucbalumnus]

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/0910/The-resegregation-of-America

Article claims that racial segregation is increasing in some places. One of the related claims is that higher racial segregation is associated with more controversies or problems in policing.

@Nissa Rhee in Christian Science Monitor

“You’re kind of looking at the greatest hits of segregation: Baltimore, Chicago, Minneapolis,” says Myron Orfield, director of the University of Minnesota Law School’s Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, referring to the police killings of Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald, and Castile. “They are places where the black and white realities are really different for people for both race and class.”

[…]

In a study coming out this fall, Orfield found that police are much more likely to shoot people of all races in segregated neighborhoods, and they are much more likely to shoot black people in white neighborhoods than anybody else.

However, an older article about residential racial segregation has a table that suggests that Minneapolis and Saint Paul are less segregated than a typical city (though segregation could still be increasing), although Chicago and Baltimore are among the cities listed as being most highly segregated.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-diverse-cities-are-often-the-most-segregated/

[Cardinal_Fang]

The 538 article is worth reading. It says cities tend to be more segregated with respect to African Americans than with other groups.

Cities with substantial black populations tend to be highly segregated. Of the top 100 U.S. cities by population, 35 are at least one-quarter black, and only 6 of those cities have positive integration scores.

So while Chicago really is something of an extraordinary case, Baltimore isn’t an outlier, exactly. Most cities east of the Rocky Mountains with substantial black populations are quite segregated. There’s not a lot to distinguish Baltimore from Cleveland, Memphis, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia or St. Louis.

[Grainraiser]

Much of that segregation is due to economics. I live in Dallas and if you live in the city limits you are either poor or at minimum upper middle class. Nearly all of the middle class live in the suburbs.

[partyof5]

Related to this topic is the increase in enrollment at HBCUs, I daresay it is due to the current racial tension. Many kids of color are seeking what they deem as a safe place.