Tag Archives: race

A continuing trend: more immigrants moving to the suburbs

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In a continuation of a recent trend, recently released data from the 2005-2009 American Community Survey shows more immigrants are moving to the suburbs:

The country’s biggest population gains were in suburban areas. But, in a departure from past decades when whites led the rise, now it is because of minorities. More than a third of all 13.3 million new suburbanites were Hispanic, compared with 2.5 million blacks and 2 million Asians. In all, whites accounted for a fifth of suburban growth.

Even in rural America, where the population grew the slowest — just 2 percent since 2000 compared with 7 percent nationwide — foreign-born residents accounted for 37 percent of that growth. Three-quarters of them were not citizens, suggesting that they had arrived only recently in the states.

As the article notes, this recent trend runs counter to the typical American immigrant experience one learns about in history class where immigrants settled first in big cities like New York, Boston, or Chicago and then moved out to the suburbs in subsequent generations.

But this trend also has the potential to literally change the face of suburbia. The stereotypical view of the suburbs is of a wealthy, white community with shady streets, good schools, and big houses. While this has some grounding in reality, there is a darker side to this: many of these communities effectively excluded minorities. Even today, there are a variety of issues on this front in suburbia including affordable housing and exclusionary zoning. With more minorities now moving to the suburbs, where will they live? In the Chicago metropolitan region, there are definitely pockets of Latinos in the suburbs (see page 21 of this PDF report – based on 2000 Census data).

The American suburbs of 2050 will probably look much different than they have in the past. What remains to be seen is whether different racial and ethnic groups live together in suburbs or fall into patterns similar to segregation levels found in many major cities.

h/t The Infrastructurist

Not so fast on integrated American neighborhoods

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Taking another angle on residential integration (based on data from the American Community Survey – also reported on here) suggests it is a very slow process. Two sociologists suggest some has changed – metropolitan whites now on average live in neighborhoods that are 74% white (the figure was 88% in 1980). But minorities still have similar segregation figures to 2000:

•Black-white segregation averaged 65.2 in 2000 and 62.7 now.

•Hispanic-white segregation was 51.6 in 2000 vs. 50 today.

•Asian-white segregation has grown from 42.1 to 45.9.

This index score (and I think this is a dissimilarity index) ranges from 0 to 100 with a score of 0 meaning that two groups are completely integrated while a score of 100 means that two groups live completely separately or in different neighborhoods.

Based on this analysis, it looks like the issue of residential segregation is one that will be with us for a long time yet. While there was improvement for some groups, there were  negative or very limited changes for other groups. All that said, residential segregation looks like it is still an entrenched feature of American life.

Lower levels of segregation in many cities according to the American Community Survey

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Residential segregation, primarily between whites and blacks, is a critical issue when considering the historical development and current state of American development patterns and way of life. But new findings from the most recent American Community Survey (the Census Bureau’s yearly survey) suggest that segregation levels have decreased in many cities:

Atlanta is one of several predominantly Southern and Western cities that showed a noticeable integration trend over the last five years as both middle-class blacks and whites moved into each other’s neighborhoods, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey of 10 million Americans, released Tuesday…

Seventy-five percent of the largest 100 US metro areas showed neighborhood segregation rates slipping to levels not seen for more than a century…

Ethnic integration failed to show the same kind of gains…

It isn’t that the North, which has lagged behind the South and West in integration rates, has dramatically different attitudes on race. Rather, new housing and job opportunities in the South and West have helped to spur integration there.

This is interesting, and potentially uplifting, news. A number of sociologists have called attention to this issue in recent decades, perhaps most notably in American Apartheid published in the early 1990s. Recent maps show that many cities have a highly visible divide between different population groups. With these recent findings, the question may now be: how much more integration might we see in American cities? Is this a short-term trend or is this indicative of a slow, steady rise of integration in American cities?

What I would like to see is a more specific breakdown of what cities improved on integration and which did not. The article suggests that cities in the South and West had increasing rates of integration while segregation decreased less in the North. This is a reminder that in American cities, segregation has been more prominent in northern cities, what scholars (according to the article) call “the ghetto belt.” Are there lessons from the cities that improved in integration that can be exported to other cities?

Additionally, how have segregation/integration rates changed in suburbs or perhaps in whole metropolitan regions?

The NBA, referees, Malcolm Gladwell, and race

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Henry Abbott at Truehoop reexamines an issue that emerged a few years ago with a paper written by several economists: do NBA officials exhibit implicit race bias when calling fouls? Here is Abbott’s take on the findings and implications of the original study:

Basically, the more black referees on the court, the better the calls for black players. And the reverse is true for white players. The entire combined effect is fairly limited, around 4 percent, but the pattern is certainly there.

All of this means not all that much about NBA referees, other than that they’re human. The research was about human decision making in the workplace, and the referees were just a handy group to study.

And nothing about these findings do much to undermine the NBA’s position as one of the most successfully race-blind organizations on the planet.

Abbott writes that the NBA essentially lost the scientific battle as experts pored over the economists’ paper as well as the NBA’s study and found the NBA’s study to be lacking. (It is also interesting to note that the economists made all of their data available online, making it open for scrutiny from others.)

Malcolm Gladwell enters the picture because of his book Blink where he looks at how people make quick decisions. In instances where race matters, such as calling fouls or making a decision about whether a suspect is about to pull a gun, a person making a decision nearly instantaneously makes judgments based on knowledge or associations they make about different races. Abbott sums up this research on race and judgments (read more about it at the Project Implicit website):

The lesson Gladwell, Winfrey, Harvard researchers and others took from this was about environment: We may have reached a point where a lot of explicit racism (the kinds of things we’d associate with hate speech, the klan, segregation and the like) is largely behind us. But our brains are still bombarded with images of “bad” black people and “good” white ones, which affects our quick reactions to white and black faces.

More broadly, this lines up with sociological thinkers who have suggested that in recent decades, racism and discrimination has become less overt and more covert. But just because racism appears less present doesn’t mean that the problem has been solved or that we have entered into a color-blind world. Gladwell and others suggest that it is even built into our snap judgments.

As Abbott suggests, how the NBA responds to this remains to be seen. The initial response of strongly denying the economists’ research appears no longer tenable. For a league that aspires to become global (involving even more ethnicities and races) and also wants to gain a larger audience in America (fighting football and baseball as the big sports), recognizing that this issue exists and also demonstrating a willingness to work at reducing the effect may matter quite a bit.

An argument: Democrats need candidates who can appeal to white voters

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This is an issue I’ve seen mentioned in a few places now: the Democratic Party has some difficulty in recruiting minority candidates who can win the white support that is needed to be able to be elected for offices beyond the House. Here is some of the analysis from National Journal:

Of the 75 black, Hispanic, and Asian-American Democrats in Congress and governorships, only nine represent majority-white constituencies—and that declines to six in 2011. Two of the party’s rising black stars who sought statewide office this year were rejected by their party’s own base. And when you only look at members of Congress or governors elected by majority-white constituencies (in other words, most of the governorships and Senate seats, and 337 out of 435 House seats), Democrats trail Republicans in minority representation.

In fact, Republicans experienced a diversity boomlet this year. Cognizant of their stuffy national image, party leaders made a concerted effort to recruit a more diverse crop of candidates. That resulted in more than doubling the number of minority elected officials from six to 13—and a ten-fold increase (from one to 10) in the number of minorities representing majority-white constituencies.

The numbers reflect an inconvenient reality—even with their more diverse caucus, Democrats face the same challenges as Republicans in recruiting, nominating, and electing minority candidates to statewide office and in majority-white suburban and rural districts. The vast majority of black and Hispanic members hail from urban districts that don’t require crossover votes to win, or represent seats designed to elect minorities. They are more liberal than the average Democrat, no less the average voter, making it more difficult to run statewide campaigns.

These are far from trivial facts. This means Democrats lack a bench of minority candidates who can run for statewide office, no less national office. Most Democratic minorities make a career in the House, accruing seniority and influence but lacking broad-based political support.

How this issue is addressed by both political parties could have a significant impact on American politics in the next few decades. As the demographics in America continue to change away from a large white majority, I would expect that more minority candidates will be elected to such offices. But whether these changes reflect, even roughly, the demographics of the country or specific states, remains to be seen.

An emerging portrait of emerging adults in the news, part 2

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In recent weeks, a number of studies have been reported on that discuss the beliefs and behaviors of the younger generation, those who are now between high school and age 30 (an age group that could also be labeled “emerging adults”). In a three-part series, I want to highlight three of these studies because they not only suggest what this group is doing but also hints at the consequences. (Find part one here.)

In Sunday’s edition of the Chicago Tribune, there was a story citing research that shows emerging adults are more tolerant than previous generations on issues like intermarriage, gay marriage, other races, and immigration. Yet, at the same time, there is also research suggesting levels of empathy among college students are down about 40% compared to the 1970s:

“Millennials, A Portrait of Generation Next,” an extensive study of teens and 20-somethings released earlier this year, showed that members of the Millennial Generation, generally born between 1981 and 2000, are “more racially tolerant than their elders.”

More than two decades of Pew Research surveys confirm that assessment.

“In their views about interracial dating, for example, Millennials are the most open to change of any generation,” the report states.

The study goes on to report that nearly 6 in 10 Millennials say immigrants strengthen the country, compared with 43 percent of adults ages 30 and older…

The problem is that tolerance doesn’t necessarily mean understanding, researchers say. Adults working with teens say they see an unsettling strain of desensitivity among young people.

In May, University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research issued a report on an analysis of 72 studies on the empathy of nearly 14,000 college students between 1979 and 2009. The result: Today’s college students are about 40 percent lower in empathy than students two or three decades earlier.

The researchers suggested that disheartening trend may have to do with numbness created by violent video games, an abundance of online friends and an intensely competitive emphasis on success, among other factors.

This is a very interesting conclusion: the younger generation is more tolerant but less understanding and empathetic. So what exactly does this tolerance look like? The lack of empathy, in particular, is interesting as it is another step beyond tolerance. Empathy is the ability to understand and take on the feelings and perspectives of others. Is tolerance the end goal or is there more that we should be striving for as a society?

This conundrum reminds me of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the current topic of our Sunday School class. In verse after verse, Jesus suggests that Christians aren’t just supposed to put up with people: “loving your neighbor” means taking an extra step toward people, bringing reconciliation, peace, and blessings to other rather than just letting them be or letting them pursue their rights in their own space. Loving people means putting them above yourself, something beyond both tolerance and empathy.

One outcome suggested by this story is a meanness or harshness among high schools. Teenagers understand about respecting difference but this doesn’t translate as well into personal interactions where being mean is seen as being cool.

Another possible outcome is living alone, keeping people at a distance. I will consider this in part three of this series.

How to get into clubs (the key: status)

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Status is a topic that fascinate sociologists – who is labeled high status, why do they develop this, and how do they use it? A new study in Qualitative Sociology looks at what people are more likely to get into clubs:

Bring a woman — preferably many — if you want to get past the velvet rope.

That’s the advice of professor Lauren Rivera, who spent six months as a coat-check girl and in other low-level positions at an uber-exclusive club in Manhattan. The jobs were a cover for her academic work, on the bouncers of the club and the decisions they make. That account was just published in the journal Qualitative Sociology. It’s pretty much a how-to for making it beyond the velvet rope.

“I study status,” Rivera, an assistant professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, tells AOL News, “and I had a question. And the question I had was, How do people evaluate the worth of others in these unconstrained situations?'”…

Rivera began by flitting around the club, trying to steal looks at the bouncers in action. But a few shifts into her stay, she set up as a coat-check girl, which gave her an almost unencumbered look at the bouncers and who they were admitting. Later, she interviewed them all, delving deeper for the why of their judgments. “The interviews were actually more fruitful than the process itself,” Rivera tells AOL News.

Here’s what she found. Bouncers, first and foremost, let in the people they’ve let in before. “Generally, the most important thing is to be recognized,” she says, i.e. a star. If you’re not a star, it’s important to be a regular — maybe a friend of the star who goes to the club often, even when the star is, say, filming a movie in Antigua.

That still leaves the rest of us. How do we get in?

“Bring women,” Rivera says. “Women get in because the more women there are, the more men will spend money on them.” So if you’re a man, it matters less what you wear than who’s on your arm — or, preferably, arms. And if you’re a woman, never come alone. Always come during a massive girls night out.

After that, pinning down who’s admitted gets tricky and idiosyncratic.

Very interesting work. The bouncers had to develop methods for letting people in or keeping them out. The bouncers may appear to have an “instinct” about this but in reality, they develop and follow rules that they believe lead to a more successful club. While the above factors would increase the likelihood of getting into the club (being a regular, bringing women, being famous), there were also factors that would decrease your status in the eyes of bouncers: being an American black or Hispanic man.

Also, this research method of participant observation allowed Rivera to dig deep into the workings of the club. Without the initial observations from the inside of the club as an employee plus the interviews at the end where she could then ask the bouncers about their decision-making, the study would not have been so complete.

Lake Forest debates affordable housing

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Lake Forest, Illinois is one wealthy suburb: according to the latest Census estimates, the suburb of 18,757 people has a median household income of $139,765 and owner-occupied homes are worth a median value of $900,000. The Chicago Tribune reports on some recent arguments over a small affordable housing project in the suburb – note, the suburb currently has about 7,188 housing units and one existing affording housing project with 5 units:

Five years ago, Lake Forest created an affordable-housing plan, acknowledging that high property values in the community were shutting out some seniors, families and education and health care workers, people who are “part of the fabric of daily life in Lake Forest,” from homeownership.

Almost two years ago, the city began working with the Lake County Residential Development Corp. to come up with a plan to construct affordable housing on less than 3 acres of city-owned land.

Last month, the City Council voted down the Settler’s Green project and directed its housing trust to modify the plan, which would have brought one market-rate and 15 affordable single-family rental homes to the northwest corner of Everett and Telegraph roads. In doing so, Lake Forest walked away from $6 million in Illinois Affordable Housing Tax Credits.

On one hand, it is good that the community is thinking about this issue. On the other hand, when push comes to shove in terms of approving even a small project on just 3 acres of land with 15 affordable housing units, people do not want the project. Additionally, the affordable housing project seems to have been aimed not at lower-income or minority residents but rather at “some seniors, families and education and health care workers.”

Some other figures suggest that Lake Forest needs more than just 5 units of affordable housing – there are plenty of workers in the area who make little money but need housing:

Last year, in a presentation to the Metropolitan Planning Council, Morsch noted that more than two-thirds of the work force in Lake Forest, Highland Park, Northbrook, Deerfield and Highwood earns less than $50,000 a year, meaning they can afford only 3 percent of the local housing stock.

It would be easy to categorize this as another case of NIMBY where citizens in the well-off community just don’t want land to be used in a way that is inconsistent with what already exists. But, this is not just an issue in Lake Forest. There are some deeper issues involving social class and race embedded in this issue of affordable housing in the suburbs.

Race as a lesser factor in forming friendships on Facebook

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A new study in the American Journal of Sociology finds that a shared racial identity was less important than several other factors when making friends on Facebook:

“Sociologists have long maintained that race is the strongest predictor of whether two Americans will socialize,” said Andreas Wimmer, the study’s lead author and a sociologist at UCLA…

In fact, the strongest attraction turned out to be plain, old-fashioned social pressure. For the average student, the tendency to reciprocate a friendly overture proved to be seven times stronger than the attraction of a shared racial background, the researchers found…

Other mechanisms that proved stronger than same-race preference included having attended an elite prep school (twice as strong), hailing from a state with a particularly distinctive identity such as Illinois or Hawaii (up to two-and-a-half times stronger) and sharing an ethnic background (up to three times stronger).

Even such routine facts of college life as sharing a major or a dorm often proved at least as strong, if not stronger, than race in drawing together potential friends, the researchers found.

Interesting findings – perhaps Facebook is a new world or younger generations don’t pay as much attention to race.

Additionally, it is interesting to read about the methodology of the study which took place at a school where 97% of students had Facebook profiles and the sociologists measured friendships in terms of photo tagging (and not who were actually listed as “friends”).

A couple of questions I have: is behavior on Facebook and choosing friends reflective of actual social patterns in the real world? Is there a selection issue going on here  – not all students or people of this age use Facebook so are college students who use Facebook already more likely to form cross-racial friendships?

How to keep the seat next to you on the train empty

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Chris Wilson examines an argument recently made by a writer about how he is able to keep the seat next to him on the train empty:

In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, Wideman describes how, during his regular commute between New York City and Providence on the Acela, he almost always enjoys a double seat to himself. I call that divine intervention. He chalks it up, after considering and rejecting the alternatives, to being black…

Wideman, a successful writer, describes his observations as a “casual sociological experiment.” But he lacks any controlled variables. Granted, the only direct way I can think of to test his hypothesis would be to adjust his complexion while holding everything else—dress, demeanor, reading material—as constant as possible. The ethics of doing this notwithstanding, the makeup is murderous to your pores.

A couple of thoughts:

1. It would not surprise me at all if race was the important factor in this situation.

2. But this is a nice illustration of how one could go about testing this hypothesis: devise an experiment where the person next to the empty seat alters their appearance/features and then sees how people respond.