ABSTRACT
Segregation. Integration. Th ese two terms evoke a host of images and feelings in the minds of many. For social scientists, lawyers, and policymakers, both terms raise issues of race. Th e earliest studies focused on two groups, African Americans and whites. Th at we are no longer in a two-group world has been oft en noted, and the segregation of Asians, Hispanics, and the various subgroups of each has been measured, analyzed, and generally found to be lower than that of African Americans. A broad brush summary of research conducted aft er the 2000 Census showed a familiar pattern: Segregation of African Americans from whites is substantially higher than that of Hispanics, which is higher than that of Asians. Between 1990 and 2000, segregation did not change much for Hispanics and Asians, due largely to continuing immigration, and it declined for African Americans. However, the declines were largest in places with relatively small black populations, newer places in the South and West, while older, industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest showed small declines in black-white segregation (Iceland 2004; Logan 2003; Logan, Stults, and Farley 2004; Wilkes and Iceland 2004). So residential segregation remains an important fact of life in cities in the United States.
