Michael Taquino

National estimates of racial segregation in rural and small-town America

The objective of this paper is to provide, for the first time, comparative estimates of racial residential segregation of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan places in 1990 and 2000. Analyses are based on block data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. decennial censuses. The results reveal a singularly important and perhaps surprising central conclusion: levels and trends in recent patterns of racial segregation in America’s small towns are remarkably similar to patterns observed in larger metropolitan cities. Like their big-city counterparts, nonmetropolitan blacks are America’s most highly segregated racial minority—roughly 30% to 40% higher than the indices observed for Hispanics and Native Americans. Finally, baseline ecological models of spatial patterns of rural segregation reveal estimates that largely support the conclusions reached in previous metropolitan studies. Racial residential segregation in rural places increases with growing minority percentage shares and is typically lower in “new” places (as measured by growth in the housing stock), while racially selective annexation and the implied “racial threat” at the periphery exacerbate racial segregation in rural places. Our study reinforces the need to broaden the spatial scale of segregation beyond its traditional focus on metropolitan cities or suburban places, especially as America’s population shifts down the urban hierarchy into exurban places and small towns.

Toward a New Macro-Segregation? Decomposing Segregation within and between Metropolitan Cities and Suburbs

This article documents a new macro-segregation, where the locus of racial differentiation resides increasingly in socio-spatial processes at the community or place level. The goal is to broaden the spatial lens for studying segregation, using decennial Census data on 222 metropolitan areas. Unlike previous neighborhood studies of racial change, we decompose metropolitan segregation into its within- and between-place components from 1990 to 2010. This is accomplished with the Theil index (H). Our decomposition of H reveals large post-1990 declines in metropolitan segregation. But, significantly, macro-segregation—the between-place component—has increased since 1990, offsetting declines in the within-place component. The macro component of segregation is also most pronounced and increasing most rapidly among blacks, accounting for roughly one-half of all metro segregation in the most segregated metropolitan areas of the United States. Macro-segregation is least evident among Asians, which suggests other members of these communities (i.e., middle-class or affluent ethnoburbs) have less resistance to Asians relocating there. These results on emerging patterns of macro-segregation are confirmed in fixed-effects models that control for unobserved heterogeneity across metropolitan areas. Unlike most previous studies focused on the uneven distribution of racial and ethnic groups across metropolitan neighborhoods, we show that racial residential segregation is increasingly shaped by the cities and suburban communities in which neighborhoods are embedded.

Multi-Scale Residential Segregation: Black Exceptionalism and America's Changing Color Line

Americas changing color line is perhaps best expressed in shifting patterns of neighborhood residential segregation-the geographic separation of races. This research evaluates black exceptionalism by using the universe of U.S. blocks from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses to provide a single geographically inclusive national estimate (Theils H) of black residential segregation from whites and other groups, which can be additively decomposed into its within (e.g., neighborhood segregation within places) and between components (e.g., racial differences between places). The results show that Americas blacks are living in blocks that are roughly two-thirds less racially diverse than the U.S. population overall. Nationally, neighborhood segregation processes account for half, or even less, of blacks segregation from whites, Hispanics and Asians. Declining big-city micro-segregation has been muted by increasing or persistent macro-segregation. Moreover, with growing neighborhood segregation in the suburbs and fringe, Americas central cities-the focus of most previous studies-now account for only a minority share of all neighborhood or micro-level segregation between blacks and whites. Evidence of black incorporation or spatial assimilation must account for other levels of geography that extend beyond the traditional focus on neighborhood segregation in big cities.

Municipal Underbounding: Annexation and Racial Exclusion in Small Southern Towns

This paper examines patterns of annexation, including municipal underbounding, in nonmetropolitan towns in the South; that is, whether blacks living adjacent to municipalities are systematically excluded from incorporation. Annexation—or the lack of annexation—can be a political tool used by municipal leaders to exclude disadvantaged or low-income populations, including minorities, from voting in local elections and from receiving access to public utilities and other community services. To address this question, we use Tiger files, GIS, and other geographically disaggregated data from the Summary Files of the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses. Overall, 22.6 percent of the fringe areas at risk of annexation in our study communities was African American, while 20.7 percent of the areas that were actually annexed during the 1990s was African American. However, communities with large black populations at the fringe were significantly less likely than other communities to annex at all—either black or white population. Largely white communities that faced a black threat—which we defined in instances where the county percent black was higher than the place percent black—were also less likely to annex black populations during the 1990s. Finally, predominately white communities were much less likely to annex black populations, even when we controlled for the size of the black fringe population at risk of annexation. Such results provide evidence of racial exclusion in small southern towns.

Civic Responsibility and the Environment: Linking Local Conditions to Community Environmental Activeness

In this article, we examine the extent to which variations in local social, economic, and spatial conditions might account for variation in community environmental activeness across 208 communities falling within nonmetropolitan areas in Mississippi. We use GIS technology to identify community boundaries, and use key informant and census data to measure community attributes. The findings indicate that community environmental activeness tends to be higher among communities that provide greater access to social capital. The level of community environmental activeness was also found to rest on the size of a community and its regional location. Community activeness increases with the size of community, but it decreases when a community is situated in an economically and socially disadvantaged region. Similarly, community activeness was found to be low in communities with low levels of education.

Units of Analysis and the Environmental Justice Hypothesis: The Case of Industrial Hog Farms

Objective. In environmental justice research, different-sized units of analysis have generated mixed results, begging the question of what constitutes the most appropriate unit of analysis. Grappling with this question raises both conceptual and methodological issues. In this article, it is argued that, conceptually, community should be the most important unit of analysis and that, methodologically, units should be selected through an appropriate sampling procedure. These issues are addressed through an investigation of the locations of industrial hog farms in Mississippi. Methods. A geographic information system procedure was used to identify community areas and to select the sample of units. The identified community areas were compared to counties, ZIP code areas, census tracts, and census block groups through a bivariate and multivariate logistic regression. Results. Race was the only variable that was consistently not found to be significant across all units. For the remaining variables—income, education, and industry—results were mixed across units. Conclusions. This research confirms that units of different size generate different results. We argue that the decision about the most appropriate unit of analysis should be conceptually rather than statistically determined and that community is the most important unit of analysis because it holds both legal and social authority to raise concern about environmentally controversial facilities.

Spatial Assimilation in U.S. Cities and Communities? Emerging Patterns of Hispanic Segregation from Blacks and Whites

This article provides a geographically inclusive empirical framework for studying changing U.S. patterns of Hispanic segregation. Whether Hispanics have joined the American mainstream depends in part on whether they translate upward mobility into residence patterns that mirror the rest of the nation. Based on block and place data from the 1990–2010 decennial censuses, our results provide evidence of increasing spatial assimilation among Hispanics, both nationally and in new immigrant destinations. Segregation from whites declined across the urban size-of-place hierarchy and in new destinations. Hispanics are also less segregated from whites than from blacks, but declines in Hispanic-black segregation have exceeded declines in Hispanic-white segregation. This result is consistent with the notion of U.S. Hispanics as a racialized population—one in which members sometimes lack the freedom to join whites in better communities. Hispanic income was significantly associated with less segregation from whites, but income inequality alone does not explain overall Hispanic segregation, which remains high. The segmented assimilation of Hispanics that we observe supports two seemingly contradictory theories: both the idea that spatial assimilation can come from economic and cultural assimilation and the notion that economic mobility is no guarantee of residential integration.

Building Capacity for Community Efficacy for Economic Development in Mississippi

In the present political environment, there is an interest in developing policies aimed at building capacity for community efficacy: the ability of a local population to come together and act collectively in pursuit of a generalized interest. In this study, we examine the extent to which variation in local conditions might account for variation in community efficacy for economic development in Mississippi. Drawing on multiple sources of data, the results clearly indicated that capacity for community efficacy rested on four major characteristics: (1) community social capital; (2) local civic physical infrastructure; (3) human and economic characteristics; and (4) community spatial characteristics.

Promoting Environmental Democracy Using GIS as a Means to Integrate Community into the EPA-BASINS Approach

This article presents a GIS-based methodology to integrate community into the Environmental Protection Agencys Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS). The proposed methodology was used for the identification, measurement, and comparison of community areas within and between the upstream and downstream watersheds of the Upper Pearl River Basin in Mississippi. Drawing on various sources of data, the communities situated in the upstream watershed were found to be significantly different from the communities situated in the downstream watershed. This information has two important implications relevant to BASINS. First, it provides insights into understanding the human dimension of water resource management. Second, it is instrumental for promoting environmental democracy: networks of association across federal, state, and local organizations that facilitate coordination and cooperation for advancing community-oriented collective action toward the environment.

COMMUNITY CONCENTRATION OF POVERTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ON NONMETRO COUNTY PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY IN MISSISSIPPI

ABSTRACT In this article we examine differences in the spatial distribution of poverty within nonmetro counties in Mississippi, and the extent to which such differences might be related to the probability that a nonmetro county might be classified as persistently poor. This study contributes to the current literature by dividing the low-income population of the county between those residing in open territory and those within urban and rural census defined places (e.g., towns, villages, and municipalities). The premise is that the higher the share of the low-income population in a county residing within places, the higher the probability that the county will be persistently poor. The results indicate that, across counties with similar poverty rates, those with higher concentration of poverty are more likely to be classified as persistently poor. The results also show that concentration of poverty is especially problematic when low-income people are concentrated in rural places (less than 2,500 persons).