For blacks in America, the gap in neighborhood poverty has declined faster than segregation

Abstract

Black residential segregation has been declining in the United States. That accomplishment rings hollow, however, if blacks continue to live in much poorer neighborhoods than other Americans. This study uses census data for all US metropolitan areas in 1980 and 2010 to compare decline in the neighborhood poverty gap between blacks and other Americans with decline in the residential segregation of blacks. We find that both declines resulted primarily from narrowing differences between blacks and whites as opposed to narrowing differences between blacks and Hispanics or blacks and Asians. Because black-white differences in neighborhood poverty declined much faster than black-white segregation, the neighborhood poverty disadvantage of blacks declined faster than black segregationa noteworthy finding because the narrowing of the racial gap in neighborhood poverty for blacks has gone largely unnoticed. Further analysis reveals that the narrowing of the gap was produced by change in both the medians and shapes of the distribution of poverty across the neighborhoods where blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians reside.on-Hispanic blacks (hereafter "blacks") generally live in poorer neighborhoods than other Americans. In metropolitan areas in 2010, for example, blacks were nearly four times more likely than other residents to live in neighborhoods where the poverty rate was 40% or higher. The racial divide persists even when comparing households of the same income (1). One study finds that the average black household with annual earnings of $75,000 resides in a higher-poverty neighborhood than the average white household with annual earnings of less than $40,000 (2). However, racial differences in neighborhood environments were even greater in the past (3). In this article, we document a significant narrowing of the black-nonblack gap in neighborhood poverty levels since 1980 and compare that decline with the decline in black residential segregation over the same period.The residential clustering of rich and poor in America is important because of the diminished life chances for residents of high-poverty neighborhoods (4, 5). In addition to more noise and congestion and the absence of green space, high-poverty neighborhoods in America often are characterized by poor schools, reduced access to healthy food, high crime rates, and weak social institutions. Sizable neighborhood inequality is particularly troubling when high neighborhood poverty is associated with race (6). If exposure to poverty adversely affects child development and educational attainment, as recent research suggests (7-11), then disparities in the neighborhood poverty environments of blacks versus more advantaged groups may be an important factor in the persistence of racial inequality across generations (12).The term "black neighborhood disadvantage" is used in this article as shorthand for the difference in poverty rates of the neighborhoods where blacks and other Americans live. Although black neighborhood disadvantage requires black residential segrega...

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