ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290029
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE LEAST SEGREGATED cities tend to be in the South and West - not because of less bigotry, but because of the much greater volume of new construction, a report says.
Older cities in the Northeast and Midwest are now the nation's most racially segregated and will probably stay that way without a Rust Belt revival in construction, says the author of a study on housing patterns.
America's most segregated city as of 1990 was Gary, Ind., according to the report by Reynolds Farley of the University of Michigan. But city officials were quick to take exception.
``We have a great melting pot here in the city of Gary,'' responded Sandi Cogan, Mayor Scott King's press secretary. ``Things are very, very mixed here.''
Of the 15 most segregated metropolitan areas, 10 were old Midwestern industrial cities, Farley reported.
The least segregated tended to be in the South and West, led by Jacksonville, N.C.
Danville and Charlottesville in Virginia also were among the least segregated.
``The least segregated metropolitan areas are dominated by places where the U.S. armed forces provide the economic base,'' Farley said in an article appearing in the February edition of Population Today. Jacksonville, for example, is near the Marine Corps' Camp LeJeune.
Using Census Bureau housing reports, Reynolds calculated what he called ``indexes of dissimilarity'' for communities that had at least a 3 percent black population or at least 20,000 blacks.
Where whites lived only on all-white blocks and blacks only on all-black blocks, the index would be 100. Where there was no racial pattern, the index would be zero.
On that basis, Gary rated 91, compared with 90 a decade earlier, while Jacksonville rated 31, down from 36.
Others on the most-segregated cities list included Detroit, 89; Chicago, 87; Cleveland, 86; and Buffalo, N.Y., 84.
The remainder of the five least-segregated cities were Lawton, Okla., 37; Anchorage, Alaska, 38; Fayetteville, N.C., 41; and Lawrence, Kan., 41.
Of 232 communities he studied, segregation declined in 191 during the 1980s, Farley reported. The national index declined from 68 to 64.
``I think that racial residential segregation is now lower in the South than in the Midwest or Northeast, not because of less bigotry but rather because of the much greater volume of new construction in the South,'' Farley said in response to questions posed by electronic mail.
Second, he added, ``the increasing educational attainment of the population and the construction of new housing are major reasons for declines in segregation. If there is little new construction in the older industrial centers of the Rust Belt, segregation levels will remain high.''
Fair housing laws of the 1970s and changes in attitude have helped reduce housing segregation, too, Farley said.
Also a factor, he found, were city boundaries.
``Most older central cities in the Northeast and Midwest had their boundaries established decades ago and are surrounded by independent suburbs, some of them known for their hostility to blacks,'' Farley said.
``But in the South and West, central cities annexed outlying land after World War II so they now include much of what would be considered the suburban ring in the Midwest.''
Population Today is published monthly by the private Population Reference Bureau, a research group based in Washington.
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