US housing segregation is persisting even as poverty declines

(credit: urbanfeel)

Racial inequality in the US is perpetuated in part by continued neighborhood segregation. Historically, people of color have been more likely to live in high-poverty neighborhoods, with limited access to education, healthcare, and professional opportunities. A recent study published in PNAS shows that there has been a decline in racially linked neighborhood segregation over the last 30 years, but there’s been an even larger decline in racially linked poverty.

The authors of this study used census data from 1980 to 2010 to compare the decline in the neighborhood poverty rates between black neighborhoods and other neighborhoods. They defined “neighborhood poverty rate” as the percentage of people in a neighborhood who were living below the poverty line.

In their comparisons, the authors found that the difference in the poverty rates between black and non-black neighborhoods declined by 40 percent over the 20-year study period. In other words, individual neighborhoods are less likely to show large income disparities. Though black Americans are still more likely to live in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, the difference in poverty levels between black neighborhoods and neighborhoods of mostly non-black residents has been narrowing. (The difference in neighborhood poverty rates between black and Hispanic or Asian neighborhoods has also declined, but not as much.)