‘Separate and unequal’: Racial segregation flourishes in US suburbs

By Luis Gomez, Associate Editor Vol. 20

America’s suburbs are displaying the same cycle of racial segregation and inequality that have afflicted major city centers for decades.  This phenomenon is due to the changing racial landscape of America’s suburbs.  Logan, a Brown University sociologist, discusses the racial division in his report “Separate and Unequal in Suburbia.”  Logan found that there is a stark difference in the neighborhoods where blacks live as compared with those where Whites and Asians live.  The nation’s suburban Black and Hispanic populations increased significantly between 1980 and 2010.  However, diversity in America’s suburbs does not translate into racial integration.  About 10 percent of the suburban population was Black in 2010, but the average Black suburbanite lived in a neighborhood that was more than 35 percent Black.  Read here for more on our increasingly segregated suburbs.