Professor Brian Stults Evaluates Racial Segregation in America

November 22, 2013
Brian Stults

Racial segregation in America is lasting longer than anyone expected.

The average black person lives in a neighborhood that is 45 percent black, even though blacks represent only 13 percent of the population, according to professors John Logan and Brian Stults at Brown and Florida State University.

Logan and Stults analyzed 2010 Census data with a dissimilarity index, which determines the percentage of one group that would have to move to a different neighborhood to eliminate segregation, to explore racial segregation. A score above 60 shows very high segregation.

While the professors evaluated segregation for pairs of racial groups, Business Insider wanted to compare overall segregation. To create an approximate ranking of metropolitan statistical areas, white-black, white-Hispanic, and white-Asian dissimilarity scores were weighted by minority population. Those areas were then mapped using the Racial Dot Map from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. Click here to view the map.

By Harrison JacobsAndy Kiersz, and Gus Lubin