The Instability of Highly Racially Diverse Residential Neighborhoods in the United States

Wright, Richard; Ellis, Mark; Holloway, Steven R.; Catney, Gemma

doi:10.1177/2332649218819168

Cited by 17 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Parents (White, Black, and Latinx) valued neighborhood racial diversity because such an environment would better prepare their children for the life they would lead as adults. Catney et al's (2020) study of the stability of what they called multiethnic neighborhoods in England reached a similar conclusion. Their research revealed that, in contrast to those in the United States, such highly diverse neighborhoods in England were very stable.…”

Section: Unbufferingmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…This is borne out empirically with the advent of increased neighborhood diversity (e.g., Ellen, 2000;Holloway et al 2012;Lee et al, 2014;Logan & Zhang, 2010;Zhang & Logan, 2016). Subsections of that literature have also traced the emergence in the last few decades of highly racially diverse neighborhoods (e.g., Wright et al, 2020), places where multiple groups are present and no one group forms a majority. The buffering idea helps explain why these places have come about and why, notably in the United States, many of these types of residential arrangements are unstable (Wright et al, 2020).…”

Section: Unbufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Subsections of that literature have also traced the emergence in the last few decades of highly racially diverse neighborhoods (e.g., Wright et al., 2020), places where multiple groups are present and no one group forms a majority. The buffering idea helps explain why these places have come about and why, notably in the United States, many of these types of residential arrangements are unstable (Wright et al., 2020). But, as we have seen, support for the buffering theory is partial.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking the “buffering” theory of neighborhood racial transition

Wright

Ellis

2021

Sociology Compass

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In metropolitan areas with significant numbers of Latinx and Black people, Santiago (1991) hypothesized that Latinx groups may “buffer” white neighborhoods from Black ones. Farley and Frey (1994, https://doi.org/10.2307/2096131) subsequently suggested that Latinx and Asian groups provide a social or spatial “buffer” that enables White and Black neighborhood coresidence. In predominantly White spaces, increases in the neighborhood shares of Latinx and Asian populations moderates White resistance to the presence of Blacks, and this helps explain growing neighborhood racial diversity in the United States. This essay suggests expanding the thesis in several ways. We first consider reversing the theory wherein Latinx and Asian groups provide a “buffer” enabling White and Black coresidence because Blacks are cushioned from the actions of Whites. This view requires us to include not only White tolerance but also White intolerance in the buffering logic. Second, we point out that racially mixed neighborhoods may also come about because people want to live in such diverse environments. Third, this leads to a consideration of processes of neighborhood racial mixing that include the roles of real estate markets actors in shaping neighborhood outcomes as well as the motivations of Latinx, Asian, and mixed‐race populations.

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Section: Unbufferingmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Unbufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking the “buffering” theory of neighborhood racial transition

Wright

Ellis

2021

Sociology Compass

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“…The most important result is that multi‐ethnic neighbourhoods in England are stable, a finding in stark contrast to the experience of equivalent high‐diversity spaces in the USA (Wright et al, 2020a). While in the USA less than 50% of neighbourhoods retained their high‐diversity status for more than a decade (2000–2010), in England fully 95% of high‐diversity neighbourhoods retained that status between 2001 and 2011.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

The evolution and stability of multi‐ethnic residential neighbourhoods in England

Catney

Wright

Ellis

2020

Trans Inst British Geog

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This paper analyses the most ethnically diverse spaces in England. We define multi-ethnic neighbourhoods as spaces where no one group is in a majority and at least five ethnic groups have representation. Around 4% of all English neighbourhoods (Lower Layer Super Output Areas) met these criteria in 2011. Often mislabelled as "segregated" spaces, the growth of ethnically diverse neighbourhoods helps benchmark increased inter-ethnic contact, yet we know very little about their spatial extent and the dynamics of their expansion. We use Census data for 1991, 2001, and 2011 to consider how neighbourhood-level diversity has changed during a period of substantial increase in ethnic diversity at the national scale. To what extent did these highly diverse areas grow, and what is the geography of that growth? Which types of areas did these neighbourhoods transition from? For example, were multi-ethnic neighbourhoods formerly low or moderately diverse, and which groups dominated these locales? We also consider if multi-ethnic neighbourhoods are here to stay, or if they are compositionally unstable. We reveal a surprising aspect in England's neighbourhood transitions: multi-ethnic neighbourhoods are highly stable, and increasingly so. Some 88% of neighbourhoods that were multi-ethnic in 1991 retained their high-diversity status in 2001, while over 95% of 2001 multi-ethnic neighbourhoods remained highly diverse by 2011. This is a different story to that of the USA, where high-diversity neighbourhoods have received more scholarly attention, and where these neighbourhoods have high attrition rates, functioning as stepping stones to another type of space. We explore the demographic and housing dynamics associated with this stability.

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“…This includes work concerned with neighbourhood change (e.g. Wright et al, 2018), selection into neighbourhoods (e.g. Clark and Brazil, 2019), the categorisation of neighbourhoods (e.g.…”

Section: Methodological-to-epistemological Multilingualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Population geography I: Epistemological opportunities of mixed methods

Finney

2020

Progress in Human Geography

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Population geography is rightly recognised for its quantitative expertise. Yet, the methodological and epistemological diversification that has taken place within the sub-discipline alongside decades of theoretical developments has gone largely undiscussed. In this report, I suggest that population geography is methodologically multilingual and thus well placed to embrace mixed methods. This would bring epistemological opportunities for population geographers, advancing the sub-discipline and engagement beyond in academia and elsewhere. The confluence of theoretical and methodological developments, and global challenges that demand attention of population scholars, means the time is ripe to broaden the lens of population geographies through deliberate pursuit of mixed methods agendas.

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The Instability of Highly Racially Diverse Residential Neighborhoods in the United States

Cited by 17 publications

References 45 publications

Rethinking the “buffering” theory of neighborhood racial transition

Rethinking the “buffering” theory of neighborhood racial transition

The evolution and stability of multi‐ethnic residential neighbourhoods in England

Population geography I: Epistemological opportunities of mixed methods

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