the flaw with your model is that it uses the metro as a whole as the optimal point [[ie, 100% integration). With your model, you can't have a city that is more integrated than the metro area is as a whole, and that is ridiculous.
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the flaw with your model is that it uses the metro as a whole as the optimal point [[ie, 100% integration). With your model, you can't have a city that is more integrated than the metro area is as a whole, and that is ridiculous.
Thanks lilpup, that book sounds interesting. I'm downloading my "free sample" from Google Books as we speak. I was motivated to make my "Most Integrated Cities" list while reading the book "Detroit, Race and Uneven development" by Dearden, Hill, Thomas and Thomas. But the book you recommended will give me some insight into a period I haven't delved much.
And thank you for understanding what I was try to measure with my list!
...and thank you to others that disagree, as well!
well that works IF metro detroit is a vacuum, with no people moving in and out. I mean think about this.... let's say the metro area was 90% white and 10% black. A city that was 92% white and 8% black would be considered more integrated than a city that was split 70/30. ridiculous!
But you are assuming that the entire human population is split 50% white / 50% black and that it would be possible for every sub-grouping to be 50% white / 50% black. If the world's population was 90% white and 10% black, it would be impossible for the world to fully integrate [[to your standard).
But it's not really a measure of "color blindness." Unless you truly believe that Dearborn, say, is more "color blind" than Southfield. And there's nothing in the actual history of either community that would likely convince anyone of that.
All it is a rather blunt measure of deviation from the overall racial composition of the three counties. This is pretty meaningless as a measure of racial integration though, since, as has been pointed out by others, a city that is over 90% white shows as more "integrated" under this measure than a city that is 40%/55% white/black, which is clearly nonsensical.
Another thing that's been pretty much ignored in this entire discussion is the long history of mortgage policy, real estate practices, and housing discrimination which, along with historic migration patterns and economic/occupational disparities, have been the true determinator of racial population patterns in the Detroit area, and pretty much every other city in the country. The legacies of these factors are finally breaking down, but they form the basis of most of what's happened to form the racial population patterns that we still see today. To treat these things as merely a legacy of choice is to ignore most of American racial history.
Let me use an illustration to try and explain this better:
If you were going to create an Integrated Street of 100 homes, you would get 69 white families, 25 black families, and 6 "other". If you instead got 47 white, 47 black, and 6 "other", you would in fact be creating an imbalance on the other streets in that area because they have too few blacks and too many whites with which to try and achieve integration [[by your standard).
I didn't mean to imply that my list will explain the entire racial history of metro Detroit. It is just a "snap-shot measure" of current [[2000) data. I fully realize that we are living at just one instant in a time-line that stretches from the "forced" segregation of the 1950's to the "voluntary" full integration of the 2050's [[or pick your own future year).
you are ignoring the world outside the detroit area. If metro detroit were 90% white, it would be a poorly integrated area as a whole. But according to your logic, any city that is as poorly integrated as the metro as a whole would be considered well integrated, and any city that showed racial diversity more akin to the rest of the country would be poorly integrated.
The racial makeup of metro Detroit is best shown on this map here
http://www.ersys.com/usa/26/2622000/ethnic.htm
I went to the link for the map, It stops about 2 miles from my city. With info collected almost 10 yrs ago, Things are different to say the least.
For a meaningful discussion and analysis, your time line needs to be longer than that. The implication throughout this thread seems to be that all population growth in the tri-county area outside of Detroit was the result of the ""forced" segregation of the 1950's". However, around the same time large numbers of Blacks were arriving in Detroit, about one-half million people were already living outside the City of Detroit in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties, according to the 1930 census. Their descendants make up a large chunk of the approximately 3 million folks living there today and while their generational growth was dependent on Detroit's economy, they never "abandoned" the city.Quote:
I fully realize that we are living at just one instant in a time-line that stretches from the "forced" segregation of the 1950's to the "voluntary" full integration of the 2050's [[or pick your own future year).
You later wrote, "I just think people are a little more locally mobile than nationally mobile", however it was national mobility [[chain migration) that brought the large population influx of Blacks and Eastern Europeans to Detroit in the first half of the 20th century and once settled in their neighborhoods with their family and friends who preceded them, local mobility kicked in. I say let's focus on breaking down the barriers to local mobility and forget trying to take "snapshots" of data that has a large, non-sinister historical component.
Update - here is the map Retroit mentions below. It's a screen shot of a Google Maps application that you can find and select under the "My Maps" link [[look for "US Census Bureau Demographics"). This "created by others" mapping application can be used to graphically display various types of demographic information from the 2000 Census.
http://grobbel.org/misc/black_percent_map.jpg
Excellent points, Mikeg. If I had the patience and willpower, I'd make a chart for each decennial census available. What I think is most relevant, however, is where we are now and where we will be in the future. I'm anxious to compile another list with the 2010 Census and then compare it to this list to see how far we've progressed.
As for "breaking down the barriers to local mobility", I would agree this is essential, but are there still barriers, and what are they? Are they actual, or merely perceived? Are people failing to integrate because of fear/discomfort, or are there systemic barriers? And is there a double standard? If a black family living in a white suburb has their garage door painted with racist graffiti, I think there is a general condemnation of such a despicable act; but if a white family moved into Detroit and was subject to repeated acts of vandalism and violence, I think most people would react with "Well, what did they expect?"
Thanks noenaim for the chart. Mikeg has posted similar maps before. I thought I copied them, but I can't seem to find them on my computer. Reddog289, you can custom make a map at the Census website: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet...ord=&_industry=
In appreciation to those that have challenged me [[although I still disagree :p ), I've composed another list to show how well each city compares with an "arbitrary" [[;)) 50/50 ratio. The list goes from most equal to least equal.
Lathrup Village
Oak Park
River Rouge
Ecorse
Pontiac
Southfield
Romulus
Inkster
Hamtramck
Royal Oak Charter Twp
New Haven Village
Mount Clements
Lenox Twp
Auborn Hills
Detroit
Van Buren Twp
Sumpter Twp
Wayne
Harper Woods
Farmington Hills
Taylor
West Bloomfield
Canton Twp
Redford
Belleville
Troy
Westland
Melvindale
Lake Angelus
Farmington
Bloomfield Twp
Franklin Village
Northville Twp
Brownstown Twp
Novi
Dearborn
Bingham Farms
Rochester Hills
Clinton Twp
Eastpointe
Lake Twp
Madison Heights
Wixom
Orchard Lake Village
Ferndale
Romeo
Warren
Southfield Twp
Bloomfield Hills
Highland Park
Sterling Heights
Plymouth Twp
Dearborn Heights
Grosse Pointe Park
Waterford
Hazel Park
Rochester
Beverly Hills
Leonard Village
Cesterfield Twp
Center Line
Roseville
Woodhaven
Lincoln Park
Southgate
Harrison Twp
Riverview
Oakland Charter Twp
Holly Twp
Utica
Grosse Pointe Shores
Royal Oak
Grosse Pointe Twp
Keego Harbor
Flat Rock
Bruce Twp
Shelby Twp
Orion Twp
Sylvan Lake
Livonia
Walled Lake
Novi Twp
Grosse Ile
Allen Park
Huron Charter Twp
Rockwood
Garden City
Richmond
Birmingham
Macomb Twp
Clawson
Northville [[Oakland)
Berkley
Springfield Twp
Grosse Pointe Woods
Pleasant Ridge
Fraser
White Lake
Wyandotte
Plymouth
Richmond Twp
Addison Twp
Northville [[Wayne)
St. Clair Shores
Commerce Twp
Gibraltar
Rose Twp
Huntington Woods
South Lyon
New Baltimore
Oxford Charter Twp
Grosse Pointe City
Clarkston
Trenton
Oxford Village
Washington Twp
Lyon Twp
Grosse Pointe Farms
Milford Twp
Brandon Twp
Milford Village
Wolverine Lake
Armada
Memphis [[Macomb)
Lake Orion
Ray Twp
Armada Twp
Ortonville
I think that for measuring how each city compares to the metro, your work is spot on. However, to measure "integration," there must be something else that could be done.
Intuition would tell me that the most "integrated" cities in Metro-Detroit are Hamtramck and Dearborn, but this is not reflected in the list. To find this, perhaps one could look for cities where no one ethnic group is a majority. I am just pulling numbers out of thin air here, but perhaps Hamtramck is roughly:
25% Middle Eastern
25% White
25% Black
25% Other, including West Asian
andylinn, I completely agree, and I struggled with this when I made the list. I finally decided that since the other "non-white-non-black" ethnic groups were such a small part of the overall population, and since areas such as Hamtramck and Dearborn are exceptions to the rule, and since I don't think that either whites or blacks are as "uncomfortable" with non-whites-non-blacks as they are with each other, I took the easy way out.
However, since you asked, I went back and put in an "other" column in my chart to take account of the non-white-non-black variance, but this actually drops Hamtramck further down the list because they have such a large "other" population that that overweighs them. Hamtamck is 24% other, but metro Detroit is only 6% other. So while it is true that Hamtramck is more diverse, if we desired to have each city within metro Detroit to have an equally diverse population, we would have to import approximately 1.36 million "others".
If anyone is interested in which cities have the highest non-white-non-black populations [[of more than 5%, to limit the length), here is a list from highest to lowest
Hamtramck
Lake Angelus
Troy
Pontiac
Dearborn
Farmington
Canton Twp
Auborn Hills
Novi
West Bloomfield
Farmington Hills
Lake Twp
Rochester Hills
Madison Heights
Bloomfield Twp
Sterling Heights
Bloomfield Hills
Inkster
Melvindale
Ecorse
Brownstown Twp
Oak Park
Wixom
Southfield
Hazel Park
Northville Twp
Dearborn Heights
Detroit
New Haven Village
Warren
Westland
Royal Oak Charter Twp
Grosse Pointe Shores
Grosse Pointe Twp
River Rouge
Rochester
Van Buren Twp
Utica
Keego Harbor
Novi Twp
Franklin Village
Taylor
Ferndale