The Landmark Studies of Segregation

Following is a list of some of the most important studies of racial residential segregation, with a few comments about each.

Charles S. Johnson, 1943. Patterns of Negro Segregation. New York: Harper & Row.

This study, commissioned as a component of Gunnar Myrdal's massive investigation of race, provides an excellent analysis of the extent of racial segregation in the United States including residential segregation. At this time, data were not available to readily quantify the extent of segregation

Gunnar Myrdal, 1944. An American Dilemma. New York: McGraw- Hill.

Gunnar Myrdal was among the first to observe and discuss both the causes and consequences of racial residential segregation. He stressed the extremely negative consequences of residential segregation but did not present quantitative evidence.

Beverly and Otis Dudley Duncan, 1955. "A Methodological Analysis of Segregation Indexes." American Sociological Review 20, (April): 210-217.

Six decades after it was written, this papers still present the most informative discussion of the measurement of racial residential segregation. This paper helped established the principle that black-white segregation could be measured and showed that the index of dissimilarity had very many desirable properties. Indeed, the index of dissimilarity continues to be the workhorse measure of segregation.

Stanley Lieberson, 1963. Ethnic Patterns in American Cities. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.

This excellent study describes the residential segregation of European immigrants and blacks in the nation's large cities early in the 20th century. European immigrants became residentially integrated with native-born whites the longer they remained in US cities, but the segregation of blacks from whites increased over time.

Karl E. and Alma F. Taeuber, 1963. Negroes in Cities: Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Change. Chicago: Aldine Publishing.

This was the first great book about racial residential segregation. The Taeubers presented the first systematic measurement of black-white segregation for the nation's large cities. They showed the high levels of residential segregation, the persistence of segregation from 1940 to 1960 and then demonstrated that segregation was not the consequence of black-white differences in economic status. This is the bedrock for all subsequent studies of black-white residential segregation in this nation. All subsequent studies of segregation borrow from or replicate the work of Alma and Karl Taeuber.

Allan H. Spear, 1967. Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto: 1890-1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

This was the first authoritative racial history of a major city that emphasized the creation of Chicago's black ghetto at the time of World War I. This important historical study served as a model for subsequent books focused upon other cities.

Kerner Commission Report, National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. New York: New York Times.

This remains, perhaps, the most frequently cited single report that focused upon the consequences of black-white residential segregation. Following the Newark and Detroit riots in the summer of 1967, President Johnson appointed Illinois Governor Kerner to head a high power commission to analyze the causes of the racial bloodshed. After focusing upon Detroit, the Kerner Commission warned that unless federal policies were substantially changed, the United States was heading toward a situation in which central cities would be the place of residence of a largely poor and minority population while suburban rings would be the homes of a much more prosperous and largely white population.

Amos H. Hawley, 1972. Freedom of Choice in Housing: Opportunities and Constraints. Washington: National Academy of Sciences.

After the bloody urban riots of the 1960s, the National Academy of Sciences appointed a group of the nation's most accomplished scholars to study the causes and consequences of the violence. Amos Hawley, an eminent demographer and sociologist, wrote the report and emphasized the key role racial residential segregation play in this nation. This is a powerful and extremely well written document about racial residential segregation

Reynolds Farley, Howard Schuman, Suzanne Bianchi, Diane Colasanto and Shirley Hatchett, 1978. "Chocolate City, Vanilla Suburbs: Will the Trend toward Racially Separate Communities Continue?" Social Science Research 7, (December): 319-344.

This study used survey data from metropolitan Detroit to link the racial attitudes and preferences of black and whites to their decision about where they would or would not live. The authors demonstrated the reluctance of many whites to remain in their own neighborhoods when blacks moved in and the unwillingness of whites to consider moving into neighborhoods with black residents or seen as open to blacks. They also showed the unwillingness of many blacks to pioneer in all-white neighborhoods.

Arnold Hirsch, 1983. Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Alden Spear's book describes the creation of the first or World War I era ghettos in northern cities. Arnold Hirsch describes the strategies used after World War II to maintain residential segregation in Chicago and elsewhere. This is an excellent analysis of how post World War II housing policies and suburbanization trends maximized the segregation of whites from blacks.

Kenneth Jackson, 1985. Crabgrass Frontier The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press

This is the most authoritative history of suburbanization in the US, yet it is a delightful book to read. The importance of race and the many federal housing and fiscal policies that exacerbated black-white segregation are emphasized. If you wish to know why northern surburban rings were areas of racial homogeneity, please read this book.

Bill Dedman, 1988. "The Color of Money." Atlanta Journal and Constitution; May 1 to 6.

This investigative reporter made innovative use of new data sources to demonstrate that lenders in the Atlanta area were, apparently, strongly influenced by the race of applicants and the race of neighborhoods when they made decisions about mortgages. This impressive and widely cited array of stories served as a model for similar investigative reports in other cities. In very many cities, newspapers reporters showed that, despite laws calling for equal opportunities, white mortgage applicants were more likely to get funding from lenders than were ostensibly similar black applicants,

Douglas S. Massey, 1988. "The Dimensions of Residential Segregation." Social Forces (December): 281-315.

This is a valuable recent discussion of issues in the measurement of racial residential segregation. This is, perhaps, the most innovative post-Duncan discussion of the measurement of racial residential segregation

David L. Good, 1989. Orvie: The Dictator of Dearborn, The Rise and Reign of Orville L. Hubbard. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

In the post World War II era, the Detroit suburb of Dearborn became the leading national symbol of suburban opposition to black residents. This excellent book describes how this important, large and very prosperous suburb, bordering a city with more than one-half million black residents - kept its racial purity even during the years of the Civil Rights Revolution.

Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, 1992. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

This frequently read and cited book reemphasized the importance of racial residential segregation in American cities. Indeed, the authors effectively linked the persistently high levels of black-white segregation to the emergence of an urban underclass consisting of many low-income or impoverished blacks. Their worked, to a large degree, confirmed the speculations of the Kerner Commission.

Reynolds Farley and William H. Frey, 1992. "Changes in the Segregation of Blacks from Whites during the 1980s: Small Steps toward a More Racially Integrated Society." American Sociological Review 59 (February): 23-45.

This was among the first in a developing series of investigation reporting modest declines in black-white residential segregation in the later decades of the 20th century.

Alicia H. Munnell, Lynn E, Browne, James McEneaney and Geoffrey M. B. Tootel, 1996. "Mortgage Lending in Boston: Interpreting HMDA Data." American Economic Review 86(1): 25-53.

This important paper presented rigorous findings showing that, despite the federal Open Housing Law of 1968, black and Hispanic applicants were turned down more frequently than seemingly similar white applicants when seeking mortgages from federally chartered fiscal institutions in New England.

Thomas J. Sugrue, 1996. Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

This important book is an authoritative case study of the strategies used to preserve and maximize racial residential segregation in the nation's fourth largest metropolis in the decades following the surrender of the German and Japanese dictators.

Ingrid Allen Gould, 2000. Sharing America's Neighborhoods: The Prospects for Stable Racial Integration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

This investigator used innovative data sources and an imaginative perspective to present a highly original analysis and interpretation of neighborhood racial change in large cities in the later decades of the 20th century. Her analysis suggests that the age of white flight from integration is over and that we might anticipate a much higher level of racial integration in the future.

John Logan and Brian Stults, 2001. Ethnic Diversity Grows, Neighborhood Integration Lags.
http://mumford1.dyndns.org/cen2000/WholePop/WPreport/page1.html

This April 2001 report, from John Logan and his collaborators at the Mumford Center at the State University of New York in Albany is the most important and comprehensive summary of changes in racial residential segregation in metropolitan United States from 1980 to 2000.

Edward Glaeser and Jacob Vigdor, 2001. Racial Segregation in the 2000 Census: Promising News.
http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/es/urban/census/glaeser.pdf

This April 2001 report by Edward Glaeser and Jacob Vigdor of the Brookings Institution describes changes in racial residential segregation in the 1990s and then presents a longer-run view emphasizing the decrease in the residential segregation of blacks from whites.