The New Suburb: Multiethnic Racial Residential Integration in the United States

Abstract

This article examines the relatively widespread trend toward racial residential integration within suburbs in the 21st century across metropolitan areas in the United States. I investigate the racial and ethnic compositions of stably integrated communities as well as the characteristics that distinguish these places. Using the information theory index (H) among stably diverse places, I identify cities and suburbs that were racially integrated between 2000 and 2010. Integrated places cluster in highly diverse, coastal metropolitan areas and almost entirely within suburbs. Moreover, integration is firmly patterned along racial lines. Reflecting the antiblack nature of segregation in the US, the rate of black-white integration remains remarkably low (10.5%), but in multiethnic communities with Asians and Latinxs, the probability of black-white integration nearly quadruples (40.1%). Several critical features of place are positively associated with integration: military and public sector employment as well as public university enrollment; new housing stock; and metropolitan political fragmentation. This study shows that suburbs are at the leading edge of American diversification and integration and illuminates the existence of communities where American society transgresses persistent forms of racial discrimination.

The Socioeconomic Context of Racial Diversity and Integration in U.S. suburbs, 1990-2010

“…[Figure 1 about here] With the widespread emergence of suburban diversity, thousands of racially diverse suburbs are now integrated as well. While racially diverse central cities have simultaneously been the most segregated spaces (Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012), the emergence of racially diverse and integrated communities occurs almost exclusively in suburbs (Bader and Warkentien 2016;Rastogi 2019). Though these communities are concentrated in southwestern and coastal metropolitan areas, they exist in every region of the nation (Rastogi 2019;Zhang and Logan 2016).…”

“…While racially diverse central cities have simultaneously been the most segregated spaces (Holloway, Wright, and Ellis 2012), the emergence of racially diverse and integrated communities occurs almost exclusively in suburbs (Bader and Warkentien 2016;Rastogi 2019). Though these communities are concentrated in southwestern and coastal metropolitan areas, they exist in every region of the nation (Rastogi 2019;Zhang and Logan 2016). Whereas integration was once thought to be a temporary state in the midst of community racial transitions (e.g., from processes like white flight or gentrification), as of 2010, 31 million Americans lived in suburbs that had been stably integrated for at least a decade (Rastogi 2019).…”

“…Though these communities are concentrated in southwestern and coastal metropolitan areas, they exist in every region of the nation (Rastogi 2019;Zhang and Logan 2016). Whereas integration was once thought to be a temporary state in the midst of community racial transitions (e.g., from processes like white flight or gentrification), as of 2010, 31 million Americans lived in suburbs that had been stably integrated for at least a decade (Rastogi 2019).…”

“…Despite this history, people of color have also been suburbanizing rapidly over the past 40 years, and now the majority of Blacks, Latinxs, Asians, Native Americans, and whites live in the suburbs (Frey 2018;Keeler 2016). This has resulted in the emergence of racially diverse suburbs in which millions of Americans live (Lacy 2016;Rastogi 2019).…”

“…In addition to being racially diverse, thousands of American suburbs are also racially integrated, where people of different racialized groups live near one another. Critically, diverse, integrated communities are almost exclusively a suburban phenomenon (Bader and Warkentien 2016;Rastogi 2019). This represents a divergence from dominant patterns of entrenched racial segregation (Massey 2015).…”