Ethnic Residential Concentrations in United States Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Although residential concentrations of immigrant ethnic groups in cities were common a century ago, it is not clear to what extent members of more recently arrived groups live near each other. We attempt to determine how common such clustered settlement is today, using 2000 census data to measure concentrations of Asians, Hispanics, and their larger ethnic subgroups in fifteen large metropolitan areas. The percentage of an ethnic group that is residentially concentrated correlated significantly with the group's proportion in an area. With metropolitan areas weighted equally, 38 percent of Hispanics and 13 percent of Asians were concentrated. However, when we analyzed eight specific nationality groups, the residentially concentrated proportion ranged from 14 to 59 percent. Level of cultural assimilation appears to explain group differences in level of concentration. Although ethnic concentrations were more pronounced in the largest metropolitan areas, important concentrations were also found in many of the smaller areas in our study.

Constructing crime: Neighborhood characteristics and police recording behavior

“…Latino neighborhoods exhibit higher concentrations of poor female-headed households and individuals who receive public assistance and/or are unemployed (Martinez, Stowell, & Cancino, 2008). Allen and Turner (2005) reported 78 percent of the Latino population is concentrated in certain residential areas. To gain a better sense of community factors that may influence police decision-making, San Antonio's 275 census tracts were selected as the unit of analysis.…”

Black–White and Hispanic–White Segregation in U.S. Counties

“…Although such partly segregated residential concentrations can provide some protection from potential hostility on the part of outsiders, they probably reflect a mostly voluntary choice by some members of the group. This is because ethnic neighborhoods provide a culturally familiar setting and array of activities for immigrants and minorities (Allen and Turner 2005;Peach 2005). Fourth, all ethnic groups have attitudes regarding which other groups are preferred or tolerated nearby and in what proportions; these affect everyone's decisions about living in various neighborhoods (Charles 2000).…”

Ethnic Residential Concentrations with Above-Average Incomes

“…However, most commonly they have been measured in terms of census tracts with a relatively high ethnic-group percentage, either as a value applied consistently to the various groups or as a variable percentage or location quotient based on the group's percentage in the city or metropolitan area as a whole (Hum and Zonta, 2000;Logan et al, 2002;Poulsen et al, 2002;Pamuk, 2004). Several scholars have defined ethnic concentrations as those census tracts in which the group's proportion was five times that in the metropolitan area as a whole (Logan et al, 2002;Parks, 2004;Allen and Turner, 2005). However, in places where ethnic groups constitute only a very small proportion of the total population, much lower thresholds seemed more appropriate to some scholars- Chung and Brown (2007) considered an ethnic concentration in Columbus, Ohio, to be those tracts in which the group's percentage was at least 1.33 times that in the metropolitan area as a whole.…”

“…Accordingly, some scholars have questioned whether any residential concentration is needed for the functioning of a middle-class ethnic community today, considering the improved communication and transportation within metropolitan areas and the fact that many immigrants now arrive with at least some familiarity with the English language and U.S. culture (Zelinsky and Lee, 1998). Nevertheless, because most U.S. metropolitan areas of more than one million people do contain ethnic concentrations as of 2000 (Allen and Turner, 2005), Immigrant Spatial Assimilation Theory may well be applicable to contemporary ethnic groups that have grown through immigration since the 1960s.…”