Does race matter in neighborhood preferences? Results from a video experiment.

Persistent racial residential segregation is often seen as the result of preferences: whites prefer to live with whites while blacks wish to live near many other blacks. Are these neighborhood preferences color-blind or race conscious? Does neighborhood racial composition have a net influence upon preferences, or is race a proxy for social class? This article tests the racial proxy hypothesis using an innovative experiment that isolates the net effects of race and social class, followed by an analysis of the social psychological factors associated with residential preferences. The authors find that net of social class, the race of a neighborhood's residents significantly influenced how it was rated.

Segregation of minorities in the metropolis: two decades of change.

Data from Census 2000 show that black-white segregation declined modestly at the national level after 1980, while Hispanic and Asian segregation rose in most metropolitan areas. Changes that may have produced greater changes for blacks proved to have insignificant effects: there was no net shift of the black population toward less-segregated areas, segregation at the metropolitan level did not decline more in areas where the incomes of blacks came closer to the incomes of whites over time, and the emergence of more multiethnic metropolises had no impact. As in the past, declines were centered in the South and West and in areas with smaller black populations.