James P. Allen

ETHNIC RESIDENTIAL CONCENTRATIONS IN UNITED STATES METROPOLITAN AREAS

Abstract. Although residential concentrations of immigrant ethnic groups in cities were common a century ago, it is not clear to what extent members of more recently arrived groups live near each other. We attempt to determine how common such clustered settlement is today, using 2000 census data to measure concentrations of Asians, Hispanics, and their larger ethnic subgroups in fifteen large metropolitan areas. The percentage of an ethnic group that is residentially concentrated correlated significantly with the groups proportion in an area. With metropolitan areas weighted equally, 38 percent of Hispanics and 13 percent of Asians were concentrated. However, when we analyzed eight specific nationality groups, the residentially concentrated proportion ranged from 14 to 59 percent. Level of cultural assimilation appears to explain group differences in level of concentration. Although ethnic concentrations were more pronounced in the largest metropolitan areas, important concentrations were also found in many of the smaller areas in our study.

Recent Immigration from the Philippines and Filipino Communities in the United States

FILIPINOS constitute one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States.1 In the 1970 census, approximately 343,000 people identified themselves as Filipinos.2 Since then more immigrants have come to the United States each year from the Philippines than from any other country except Mexico.3 If present immigration trends continue, by 1980 there will be approximately as many Filipinos in the United States as there are Chinese or Japanese. Thus an analysis of Filipino immigration, settlement, and ethnicity will contribute to our understanding of the geography of American society.4

Issues in Depicting Population Change with Dot Maps

Creating dot maps to show changes in racial and Hispanic population distributions between two census periods can be an effective way to examine one of the most important dimensions of change within any metropolitan area. Using dots of one color to show population increase and dots of a second color to show population decrease vividly reveals where changes have occurred within a larger total population. We prepared such maps for the book Changing Faces, Changing Places: Mapping Southern Californians, the text of which analyzes and interprets the population shifts evident on the maps. The maps show the expansion and contraction of racial and Hispanic populations in specific neighborhoods so that community leaders and residents alike can easily relate general trends to their localities. In this article we describe the preparation of these dot maps and explain major problems encountered in linking the 1990 and 2000 census population counts at the tract level. We explain our solutions, which we believe made possible more accurate mapping of neighborhood change.