Many people have no choice! If you are Asian in an area with a five percent Asian population, you will likely be a minority no matter what neighborhood you live in. It’s a far different thing for someone who is a minority ever day than for someone who isn’t.
Often times socioeconomic status comes into play. For example, the Obama administration is seeking to create more racial integration by putting mostly black housing projects in wealthy, mostly-white neighborhoods. Most people who would welcome upper-middle-class black neighbors resent like hell the idea of having a bunch of poor people of any race plopped down in their midst.
Some of you might be interested in the computer model of Thomas Shelling, who found that even a small preference by people to live in a neighborhood with others of their race resulted in substantial housing segregation. I’ve posted a link below, but even if you assume that people want to live in a neighborhood where 25 percent of their neighbors will be of the same race, then substantial housing segregation occurs. If you increase that preference to 50 percent, then you end up with massive segregation of the type that exists in most communities today.
Here’s a link so you can read about it and try it if you wish, or you can Google it and find another model:
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/demos/schelling/schellhp.htm