Joe T. Darden

Black Residential Segregation in the City and Suburbs of Detroit: Does Socioeconomic Status Matter?

According to ecological theory, the socioeconomic status of a minority group is inversely related to the group’s level of residential segregation from the majority group. This article determines whether the level of black socioeconomic status is related to the level of black residential segregation in the city of Detroit and Detroit’s suburbs. Data were obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 Summary Tape Files 4-A. The methods employed to measure residential segregation were the indexes of dissimilarity D and isolation P*. Indexes were computed by census tract to measure segregation and isolation between blacks and whites at the same level of occupation, income, or education. The results revealed that residential segregation between blacks and whites remained high (i.e., above 50%) in both the city and the suburbs despite comparable socioeconomic status. Blacks in the suburbs were more segregated and isolated than blacks in the city at each socioeconomic level.

In the wake of desegregation early impacts of scattered-site public housing on neighborhoods in Yonkers., New York

This study examines the early effects of seven scattered-site public housing developments on the receiving neighborhoods in Yonkers, New York, where opposition to court-ordered desegregation was pa...

The Measurement of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Characteristics and Black and White Residential Segregation in Metropolitan Detroit: Implications for the Study of Social Disparities in Health

Research has suggested that the pattern of residence (integration or segregation) alone is insufficient to explain health disparities by race. Socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods where blacks and whites reside must also be considered to explain health disparities. This article has three aims: (1) to describe the component socioeconomic characteristics of census tracts (neighborhoods) of residence in metropolitan Detroit in 2000 for three indexes of socioeconomic position (SEP); (2) to assess the concordance of the three indexes of SEP of census tracts (neighborhoods) categorized into quintiles based on metropolitan Detroit census data in 2000; and (3) to compare the extent to which black–white residential segregation is revealed by SEP of neighborhoods in metropolitan Detroit. Census data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census (SF3) were used to define three indexes of SEP of neighborhoods, the modified Darden/Kamel Composite Socioeconomic Index, the modified Krieger Composite Deprivation Index, and an index of percentage poverty. Residential segregation was measured using the index of dissimilarity. The three indexes similarly captured variability in neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics. Further, sharp geographic inequality was revealed by race and socioeconomic status in the Detroit metropolitan area. The social and spatial structure created by the indexes will help researchers and policymakers better understand the effects of racial and socioeconomic characteristics as well as racial residential segregation on the complex factors related to social disparities in health by race.

CARTOGRAPHIC EDITORIAL—MAPPING THE RACIAL/ETHNIC TOPOGRAPHY OF SUBPRIME INEQUALITY IN URBAN AMERICA

The worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression—a wide-ranging, multidimensional catastrophe often labeled the Great Recession—began to unfold in late February 2007 as bond-ratings analysts in New York, London, and Hong Kong reviewed the latest quarterly disclosures on securities backed by millions of subprime mortgage loans made to borrowers in cities and suburbs across the United States. For many years, the high-cost, high-risk subprime market had flourished by exploiting the interdependent American inequalities of race, ethnicity, class, and place: subprime lending was disproportionately focused on racially and ethnically marginalized people and places (Bradford, 2002; Squires, 1992, 2003) and extracted profits from local, place-bound housing transactions to provide revenue streams for local brokers and lenders and investment opportunities for large national and transnational banks, Wall Street investment firms, hedge funds and monoline insurance companies, and institutional investors around the world. At its peak, the lending boom comprised a substantial (if ultimately unmeasurable) proportion of the highly leveraged web of promises in the seemingly placeless, Castellian space of flows of a credit-default swaps industry estimated at more than

Socioeconomic status and racial residential segregation: Blacks and hispanics in chicago

60 trillion. As the housing boom collapsed, high-yielding subprime securities suddenly became known as “toxic assets,” and investor panic brought a cascade of structural failures in the architecture of the global financial system. Big failures begat big bailouts: by the spring of 2009, the International Monetary Fund estimated total worldwide losses to financial institutions of

Spatial Methods to Study Local Racial Residential Segregation and Infant Health in Detroit, Michigan

4.1 trillion, whereas in the U.S. alone more than a dozen interwoven initiatives authorized by Congress in the “Troubled Asset Relief Program” committed almost

Spatial and Socioeconomic Analysis of Latin Americans and Whites in the Toronto CMA

3 trillion of public funds to the financial system (SIGTARP, 2009). Even more money came

Black and white differences in homeownership rates in the Toronto Census Metropolitan area: Does race matter?

The objective of this paper is to determine whether residential segregation between blacks and whites and Hispanics and whites declines once socioeconomic status differences are controlled. Data for this paper were obtained from the U.S. Bureau of the Censuss 1980 Summary Tape File 4. The Chicago SMSA is the study area, The method employed to measure residential segregation is the index of dissimilarity. Indices of dissimilarity were computed by census tracts between blacks and whites and Hispanics and whites at the same level of occupation, income and education. The results suggest that race remains the most significant factor in residential segregation.

Black Political Underrepresentation in Majority Black Places

Over the last several decades, blacks in the United States have experienced substantial health disadvantages compared to other racial and ethnic groups. These disadvantages have been observed for important types of morbidity and early mortality, which public health interventions have achieved limited progress in improving. A promising new direction in health geographic research investigates the relationships among racial residential segregation, neighborhood socioeconomic inequality, and racial health disparities in urban areas of the United States. Historical evidence shows that as class isolation increases in racially segregated neighborhoods, poverty is concentrated, resulting in reduced opportunities and available and accessible amenities and resources, important factors in the promotion and maintenance of population health and well-being. Contemporary evidence shows that the ability to modify the structural constraints that create and exacerbate these unhealthy “place” environments are limited by social and public health policies. This study therefore explores modifiable pathways by which to inform social and public health policy to improve the health of black residents living in concentrated poverty. The historical context of racial residential segregation and neighborhood socioeconomic inequality in the United States is reviewed. A contemporary case study of racial disparities in low birth weight in the Detroit, Michigan, metropolitan area is also presented to demonstrate the persistence of racial health disparities. To address racial health disparities it is recommended that future health policy be linked to housing policy as a way to provide social mobility options for residents living in racially segregated, concentrated poverty neighborhoods.

Black faculty in predominantly white U.S. institutions of higher education: The influence of black student enrollment

This study had three objectives: (1) to determine whether the degree of residential segregation between Latin Americans and whites in the Toronto CMA was higher than the residential segregation between whites and other visible minority groups; (2) to determine the spatial distribution of Latin Americans and whites by census tracts; and (3) to determine the differences in the socioeconomic quality of the neighborhoods where the two groups reside. Data from Statistics Canada’ s 1996 Proe le Series were used. An index of dissimilarity was used to measure segregation and a composite socioeconomic index was constructed to assess inequality in the socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods where the two groups reside. The results revealed that Latin Americans and whites are not highly segregated in terms of residence. Yet, socioeconomic inequality between whites and Latin American neighborhoods is very evident. Whites are disproportionately occupying the highest quality neighborhoods while the Latin Americans are disproportionately residing in poorer quality neighborhoods. The differences may be due to several factors including the recent immigration status of Latin Americans and discrimination.