The Geography of a Mixed‐Race Society

Abstract

The pattern and level of separation among ethnic groups continues to change, and there are certainly more mixed neighborhoods both in cities and suburbs than two decades ago. The immigration flows of the past decade have substantially altered the ethnic mix and neighborhood mixing. In addition, multi-ethnic individuals themselves are altering the level of mixing among racial and ethnic groups. The research in this article shows that those who report themselves of more than one race have high levels of residential integration both in central cities and suburbs. These residential patterns can be interpreted as further evidence of tentative steps to a society in which race per se is less critical in residential patterning. The level of integration, for Asian mixed and black mixed is different and substantially higher than for those who report one race alone. The research in this article builds on previous aggregate studies of mixed-race individuals to show substantial patterns of integration in California's metropolitan areas.

The residential segregation patterns of whites by socioeconomic status, 2000–2011

“…Although small relative to other racial/ethnic groups, the mixed-race population continues to grow, and their residential outcomes should be assessed more closely. Clark and Maas (2009) have reported, for example, that mixed-race individuals earn more than their single-race counterparts, in addition to living in more integrated neighborhoods. Increasing rates of intermarriage, education, and multiple language proficiency (outside of English), should be accompanied by a growing tolerance of other groups and ostensibly more integration, regardless of SES.…”

Who Moves Into what Kinds of Neighbourhoods: Spatial Sorting and Integration

“…Clearly, mixed race individuals and households live in more diverse settings (Ellis et al . ; Clark & Maas ; Wright et al . ) which leads to the view that that racial boundaries may be as fluid in the present as they were eventually for Irish, Italians and Jews.…”

Preferences Toward Neighbor Ethnicity and Affluence: Evidence from an Inherited Dual Ethnic Context in Post-Soviet Tartu, Estonia

“…T he residential segregation of ethnic and racial groups has been one of the most thoroughly studied topics in urban social geography in Western Europe and North America (for reviews, see Peach 1999;Lichter 2013). The recent literature offers growing evidence that alongside persistently high levels of residential segregation, neighborhoods are diversifying along the lines of race and ethnicity (Vertovec 2007;Clark and Maas 2009;Logan and Zhang 2010;Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012). For example, in the United States there is an increasing number of census tracts where all four main ethnoracial groups (whites, blacks/African Americans, Asians, Hispanics) are represented.…”

“…Immigration helps drive such changes (Vertovec 2007;Hall 2013;Lichter 2013), and although emerging diverse neighborhoods might increase intergroup interaction and relieve formerly extreme segregation, integrated neighborhoods remain quite unstable. All of this suggests that processes that shape the segregation of ethnic and racial groups are becoming increasingly complex (Clark and Maas 2009;Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012). The renewed interest in understanding the role of preferences in shaping the ethnic and racial neighborhood diversity and segregation is occurring not only in the United States (Lewis, Emerson, and Klineberg 2011) but also in Europe (Ibraimovic and Masiero 2014).…”