The United States is growing more racially and ethnically diverse every year. It is projected that by the mid-2040s there will no longer be a racial majority in the United States. If and when that occurs, it will mark one of the most significant demographic changes in United States history.
The majority of the diversity in the United States is located in large metropolitan areas, but that diversity is unevenly spread. A city as a whole may be more racially and ethnically diverse than its surrounding areas, but many neighborhoods within the given city remain highly segregated by race and ethnicity.
For example, in the Chicago metropolitan area, Pilsen and Evanston are very diverse, but the neighborhoods in the South and West sides remain racially segregated, as CityLab reports.
From a neighborhood standpoint, it seems as though the greatest increases in diversity have occurred, not in large cities, but in the suburbs and outlying areas. This information comes from an analysis of the geography of metropolitan diversity from 1990 to 2010 and was presented in a report by Kyle Walker, an assistant professor of geography and director of the Center for Urban Studies at Texas Christian University.
Walker also created an interactive app for over 30 metro areas that charts neighborhood-level demographic data in relation to his “diversity gradient” methodology. This diversity gradient tracks a measure of how evenly whites, Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians are distributed within a Census tract in relation to distance from the urban core.
The broad conclusion Walker draws in his paper from his research is that the analyses reveal how growing diversity in the suburbs has been accompanied by "persistent homogeneity of neighborhoods in urban cores.”
To view the report or to use the interactive app, follow the link below.
