Racial and ethnic diversity continues to spread to communities across the United States. Rather than focus on the residential patterns of specific minority or immigrant groups, this study examines changing patterns of white residential segregation in metropolitan America. Using data from the 1980 to 2010 decennial censuses, we calculate levels of white segregation using two common measures, analyze the effect of defining the white population in different ways, and, drawing upon the group threat theoretical perspective, we examine the metropolitan correlates of white segregation. We find that white segregation from others declined significantly from 1980 to 2010, regardless of the measure of segregation or the white population used. However, we find some evidence consistent with the group threat perspective, as white dissimilarity is higher in metro areas that are more diverse, and especially those with larger black populations. Nevertheless, our findings indicate that whites having been living in increasingly integrated neighborhoods over the last few decades, suggesting some easing of the historical color line.

The goal of this study is to examine the extent to which population shifts over the post–Great Migration period and divergent trends in segregation across regions contributed to the overall decline in black segregation in the United States in recent decades. Using data from the 1970 to 2000 decennial censuses and the 2005–2009 American Community Survey (ACS), our analysis indicates that black dissimilarity and isolation declined by more in the South and West than in the Northeast and Midwest. Nevertheless, regional population shifts account for only a modest amount (8% to 12%) of the decline in black-white segregation over the period and an even smaller proportion of the decline in black-nonblack segregation, in part because the largest declines in segregation occurred in the West while the region with the largest relative increase in the black population was the South. Using more refined census divisions rather than census regions provided some additional explanatory power (shifts across divisions explained 15%–16% of the decline in black-white segregation): divisions with larger gains in their share of the black population tended to have larger declines in black segregation. Overall, although the effect of the regional redistribution of the black population on declines in segregation was significant, of even greater importance were other causes of substantial declines in segregation in a wide array of metropolitan areas across the country, and especially in the West, over the past 40 years.

In this paperwe examine how life events impact inter-neighborhood residential mobility among a cohort of young adults from the United States. We combine choice-based models of mobility with life-course principles to argue that life events associated with the transition to adulthood should be associated with residential mobility in the short-term, but residential stability in the long-term. Unanticipated and disruptive events, on the other hand, are expected to place individuals on a long-term trajectory of residential instability. Longitudinal survey data covering nearly 30 years allows us to capture short-term effects, average effects, and trends across time. We find particularly strong short-term effects on mobility for marriage and homeownership, both of which subsequently lead to long-term stability. We also find that divorce and incarceration (an emerging turning point in the life-course) predict instability in both the short-and long-term. Additional analyses suggest that some eventslike homeownershipare immediately stabilizing, while otherslike marriagelead to stability across time.We conclude by discussing the contributions of the findings to our understanding of residential mobility and the transition to adulthood in the contemporary United States.

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Much of the research on ethnoracial diversity in nonmetropolitan America consists of case studies describing how the arrival of Hispanics has transformed a particular community. To complement this work, we examine the dimensions and sources of diversity for a sample of 10,000 nonmetro places. Two dimensions of diversity—magnitude and structure—are identified, and hypotheses about their changes and correlates are drawn from the spatial assimilation and locational persistence perspectives and relevant scholarship. Our analysis of 1990–2010 decennial census and American Community Survey data documents a pervasive upward trend in diversity magnitude. However, places tend to follow parallel rather than identical diversity trajectories and to retain the same type of racial-ethnic structure in 2010 that they exhibited 20 years earlier. Fixed effects regression models show that ethnoracial diversity gains are most likely in nonmetro communities with plentiful economic opportunities, fewer old residents, and growing total, foreign-born, and correctional populations. These correlates hold for micropolitan and rural places and across census regions. Though our results largely conform to locational persistence logic, we find that spatial assimilation still has some merit, underscoring the importance of incorporating multiple theoretical models in a segmented change perspective on nonmetropolitan diversity.