WASHINGTON – America's neighborhoods took large strides toward racial integration in the last decade as Blacks and Whites chose to live near each other at the highest levels in a century.
Still, segregation in many parts of the U.S. persisted, with Hispanics in particular turning away from Whites.
A broad range of 2009 census data released Tuesday also found a mixed economic picture, with the poverty rate swinging wildly among counties from 4 percent to more than 40 percent as the nation grappled with a housing boom and bust. Just three U.S. localities reported median household incomes of more than $100,000, down from seven in 2000.
Segregation among Blacks and Whites increased in one-fourth of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, compared to nearly one-half for Hispanics.
The latest figures reflect new generations of middle-class Blacks moving to prosperous, fast-growing cities, said Dr. William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution who reviewed the census data.
“In contrast, the faster national growth of Hispanics has led to increased neighborhood segregation,” Frey said.
The U.S. in many ways remains divided by race and economic lines, said Dr. John Logan, a sociologist at Brown University who has studied residential segregation.
“Whites are still on average a large majority in the places where they live, and Blacks and Hispanics are the majority or near-majority in their neighborhoods,” he said. “They suggest that all the talk about a post-racial society means nothing at the level of neighborhood.”
Broken down economically, in 21 counties more than 1 in 3 people lived in poverty, many of them American Indian reservations in the High Plains. Amid swirling congressional debate over taxing the wealthy, three localities in Virginia had median household incomes of more than $100,000: the city of Falls Church and Fairfax and Loudoun counties.
The new information is among the Census Bureau's most detailed release yet for neighborhoods, pending demographic results from the official 2010 census next spring.
