ABSTRACT
Residential segregation is a critical factor in shaping socioeconomic outcomes. Because one’s neighborhood determines the availability and quality of many job-related public services, such as public transportation and schooling, racial segregation in housing leads to differential educational and job opportunities and hence lifelong earnings. Yet racial segregation is widespread and persistent in the United States. Whites, on average, live in neighborhoods that are nearly 83 percent white, blacks live in neighborhoods that are 56 percent black, while Hispanics, on average, reside in communities that are 42 percent Hispanic (Lewis Mumford Center, 2001a). The fact of severe and persistent racial segregation of housing patterns in metropolitan areas is not contested, though the causes of segregation are hotly debated.
