Global Neighborhoods: New Pathways to Diversity and Separation

AJS. 2010 Jan 1;115(4):1069-1109. doi: 10.1086/649498.

Abstract

Analyses of neighborhood racial composition in 1980-2000 demonstrate that in multiethnic metropolitan regions there is an emerging pathway of change that leads to relatively stable integration These are "global neighborhoods" where Hispanics and Asians are the pioneer integrators of previously all-white zones, later followed by blacks. However, region-wide segregation is maintained at high levels by whites' avoidance of all-minority areas and by their continued exodus (albeit at reduced levels) from mixed settings. Globalization of neighborhoods adds a positive new element of diversity that alters but does not erase the traditional dynamic of minority invasion succession.