Global Neighborhoods: Pathways to Diversity and Separation

John R. Logan, Brown University
Wenquan (Charles) Zhang, Brown University

This study analyzes how traditional processes of racial invasion and succession are affected by the growth of immigrant populations from Latin America and Asia. Metropolitan regions with new "global neighborhoods" display a predominant trend during 1980-2000 toward greater racial and ethnic diversity at the neighborhood level. The study uses census data at the tract level for the nation's most multiethnic metropolitan areas, and traces their composition over time in terms of presence of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and/or Asians. Stable integration is most likely to occur when blacks enter neighborhoods that whites already share with Hispanics and Asians. The analysis reveals limitations of diversity, especially the existence of many all-minority neighborhoods that are unlikely to develop any white presence and the persistence of white flight from some integrated settings.