ABSTRACT
The diversity of characteristics among black suburban communities raises the issue of the relative importance of each community type in the overall distribution of the suburban black population. This chapter addresses two related questions in examining the geographic distribution of recent black population growth within the suburbs. First, is the increase in the suburban black population evenly distributed throughout suburbia or concentrated in particular community types? Second, given the variability and heterogeneity of the suburban zone, how does the spatial distribution of black population growth correlate with the distribution of housing and neighborhood characteristics? The findings reveal that black suburbanization is multidimensional, encompassing a range of community types, of initiating mechanisms, and of dynamics of growth. Aggregate data showing an overall black increase conceal a redistribution of the suburban black population, in which some suburban communities are gaining and others losing black population.
