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Study says Boston not in the top 25 most-segregated US cities
By perruptor on Tue, 06/29/2021 - 9:38am
A study by researchers at UC Berkeley titled The Roots of Structural Racism has ranked US cities according to how segregated they are. Here's the list. Boston (OK, "Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH") is 28th. Number one most-segregated city? NYC.
Here's a Guardian story about the study.
More than 80% of America’s large metropolitan areas were more racially segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990, the researchers found, even though explicit racial discrimination in housing has been outlawed for half a century. The levels of residential segregation appeared highest not in the American south, but in parts of the north-east and midwest: the most segregated metropolitan area in the US according to the study is New York City, followed by Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit.
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Comments
To me, this just shows that
To me, this just shows that the country at large is extremely segregated. A highly segregated city like Boston only being number 28 on the list does a pretty good job at illustrating how fucked up this country is.
so by what metric do you view it as extremely segregated?
like by neighborhood or by economic measurements or? There are certainly racial problems here and huge economic gaps but Roslindale seems pretty mixed in terms of the kinds of people you see in the store and walking down the street.
My perception is that one thing Boston really lacks compared to places like Atlanta, Charlotte, DC, etc... is a large black middle class but that's anecdotal at best.
As someone who grew up in Roslindale
It a LOT more white than I ever remember.
As somebody who's lived in Roslindale since the 1990s
No, Roslindale is not whiter than it's ever been. It's a lot more diverse than it was when we moved here.
You should donate
your house to a trust that will give it to a BIPOC family, in the name of diversity.
The fact that you had to
The fact that you had to limit your example to a specific neighborhood should tell you something.
Not really?
Roslindale, JP, Dorchester, East Boston, South End - all pretty mixed, aren't they? Roxbury, West Roxbury, Charlestown maybe less so?
So when you state the city is really segregated, what's your persepctive?
Edit: brain fart.
East End?
Please edit that post.
Hyde Park
Hyde Park
Roslindale
Dorchester
Mission Hill
Allston
Roxbury
Jamaica Plain
Chinatown
Are all neighborhoods where the largest racial group makes up 40-60% of the population + extreme ethnic diversity.
East Boston and Brighton are in that 60-70% range.
It's only Southie, the Town, Downtown and Mattaoan that are actually undiverse
Thanks
That's kind of what I thought. I guess Mission and Fort Hills 'diversify' Roxbury a good deal.
Forgot the whitest
Forgot the whitest neighborhood the Seaport.
one thing Boston really lacks
Yeah, wonder why that is...
Most cities
Lack that
is this a rebuttal?
n/t
I think many of us are
I think many of us are speaking anecdotally but...
The metric I would use is that after living here for decades I have always found it hard to go out and do anything and be in a mixed crowd. Shopping, restaurants, night life, cultural attractions have always been segregated in my experience.
I can recall striking up a conversation at Neptune Oyster in the North End with a visiting black couple from Texas who asked why there were no black people in Boston. They were surprised when I told them we were a minority majority city.
This is not the case when I visit New York or Cleveland. I'm around black people there without trying. Here it seems you have to put in effort to find a mixed space.
I do, however, think it is better here than it was in recent decades.
Tbh
I mean very few cities have a large black middle class may be like 10-12 of me And most are in the South.
Charlotte
DC
Houston
Dallas
Atlanta
Raleigh
Nashville
Denver/Vegas (as a share of its black population)
LA/NYC (overall number)
it's not gonna fundamentally change until..
...we seriously revise the relationship between local political boundaries and education. Ban private schools, put all the tax money from the state in the same pot, and distribute it equally.
I realize this is a pipe dream, but I also think this is the root of the problem, however intractable. As with reforming zoning regulations, lots of ostensible "progressives" just aren't on board.
Why would be ban?
I'm curious as to why we would ban private schools? If the argument is that, the money would then go back into the pot of money to better fund public schools, you could easily argue that public schools just need more funding.
We don't need to take away from one child's opportunity (to go to a private school) to help better another child. We can maybe ask why we spend 5x the amount of money to maintain every mile of road in the state (compared to our neighboring states), demand more efficiencies and less "hookups" for our buddies, and use that money for public schools (this is an example).
My argument is that we don't need to take away from a child, to give to another. We can just demand our state and city govt. start to actually be efficient with our money, to make it go as far as it should be to help us all.
It worked for Finland
It's more than funding. It's getting powerful people invested in the quality of public schools. If their kids have to attend, they have a vested interest in making the public schools the best possible.
It might be good to discard all assumptions before seeking solutions, including the assumption that the problem is lack of efficiency. We've seen decades of policy based around being "efficient" and cutting "waste", and somehow it never ends in better outcomes. It's amazing how casual outside observers don't always know what's "efficient" and what's best.
Cultural appropriation
Basically you are suggesting we impose white, Protestant, Eurocentric norms upon communities of color.
None of this solves the problem
If anything, banning private schools would accelerate flight from urban cores. Biff and Muffy can live on Beacon Hill as long as they can send Skip and Taylor to private school.
People are going to move as far as necessary to ensure their kids aren't stuck in a failing school. If that means NH or RI, they'd probably do that. And as a practical matter, busing kids 40 miles each way in an urban region would be unworkable.
Fix the local schools and you (mostly) fix the segregation problem.
METCO's not 40 miles each way
METCO's not 40 miles each way- but know/ know of people who participated in program who were going around 20 each way a day- but I assume that would also go by the wayside in the "ban private schools" platform
Boston's housing patterns are also a problem.
As a result of redlining certain neighborhoods, thereby restricting where blacks and other non-whites can buy, or even rent housing, the housing here in Boston is also quite segregated, racially. Had it not been for the malicious way in which B-BURG (Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group) had been administered (i. e. singling out Boston's Jewish neighborhoods for the program, rather than allowing blacks and other non-whites access to housing throughout the city of Boston.), Boston's neighborhoods and schools alike would be far more integrated, thus resulting in more integrated schools, thus derailing Louise Day Hicks's crusade before it had the chance to really get off the ground and therefore eliminating the need for the calamitous large-scale, cross-city Federal Court-mandated school busing program, and resulting in far better schools and more integrated neighborhoods and schools for non-white and white Boston public school students alike.
Don't let Brookline off the hook
The fact that there is a large, low density developed, zoned racist neighborhood stuck like a leech into the side of the city also exacerbates all kinds of housing inequities.
Yup. Every single major city
Yup. Every single major city is high on the list.
The congressional black caucus said people should not segregate.
Wellsely said we should smarten up too.
Still in the "High Segregation" range
You have to get down to #102 before you reach "Low-Medium Segregation".
At least when it comes to
At least when it comes to income inequality, Boston is #1.
Can you read? That statistic
Can you read? That statistic is about OVERALL income inequality, and the article goes on to note that Boston's 95th percentile income vs. 20th percentile income ratio is especially high because of all the dang students.
2014
Your data is from 2014. Please find something more recent
"The Color of Wealth" Report
"The Color of Wealth" Report by the It is not about Boston or Bostonians . If one takes the time to look at the methodology of the study you see that it on The Boston Metro Statistic Area which is the 4.6 million inhabitants of Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, Middlesex, Plymouth Counties in Mass and Rockingham and Stafford New Hampshire.
Targeted surveys were sent out and this was the data collected from 403 self reported surveys. While the report is a very interesting read it is not a gold standard research tool.It goes so far as to explain the wealth of earlier Haitian Immigrants because they were able to buy 3 Decker in Dorchester in re 70's for 40k(?) as I remember It you couldn't give a three Decker in Dorchester away in the 70's. It is not a reflection of the wealth of the ordinary resident of the City of Boston although it has been touted often and loudly as such.
,Suffolk 401 surveys of self reported income assets and
Metro area is not the city
Adam, cmon.
The Boston metro is not the city. Why? because the Boston Metro is not diverse enough to have major segregation. The city itself is a whole different story.
Leave Adam alone
He didn't post this. I did.
its #18
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/most-least-segregated-cities
Boston literally #18 for cities. 28th for metro. This is the same site. Be a little sharper adam, cmon.
Leave Adam alone
He didn't post this. I did.
One thing these cities all
One thing these cities all have in common is sky high real estate prices. Wealthy people can cut themselves off from everyone else and they do so. Statistically white people have more money so they tend to split off and do their own thing. There is a sure racial element to it as well in about fifteen different ways but the easiest way to desegregate is to disrupt the lines we allow to be drawn. For education, for services, for funds, for housing. As long as we allow these lines to be drawn people will do whatever they can to be on the better side of that fence. I bet if someone chart with average property per square foot prices you'd find a huge correlation with segregation.
Actually New York is not the
Actually New York is not the most segregated city. The data is for “New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA”. That represents a huge metropolitan area across three states.
NY now has the worst traffic
According to Texas A&M Transportation Institute, NYC-Newark has the worst traffic in the country. Boston is #2.
Would it be fair to say that
Would it be fair to say that the so-called bad parts of Boston are positively luxurious compared to large swaths of Chicago, Detroit and Baltimore?
While Baltimore has thousands
While Baltimore has thousands of vacant buildings those building aren't in that bad a shape. Chicago and Detroit on the other hand just leave partially wrecked buildings in place as far as I know. Boston's Inner City on the other hand tends towards vacant lots not wrecked buildings. So with those caveats Boston is better off than the cities you named.
Redlining fueled by racism and anti-semitism was the main factor that caused segregation in Boston.
This report actually makes me think we are making progress.
jeez
“wHaT aBOuT cHicAGo” really never gets old for you people
i was gonna' say: why is a
i was gonna' say: why is a music sckool reporting statistics on regional racial integration ?