Richer minorities seen living in poorer neighborhoods

The most successful blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have poor neighbors than are whites, according to a new analysis of Census data.

The average affluent black and Hispanic household — defined in the study as earning more than $75,000 a year — lives in a poorer neighborhood than the average lower-income non-Hispanic white household that makes less than $40,000 a year.

"Separate translates to unequal even for the most successful black and Hispanic minorities," says sociologist John Logan, director of US2010 Project at Brown University, which studies trends in American society.

"Blacks are segregated and even affluent blacks are pretty segregated," says Logan, who analyzed 2005-09 data for the nation's 384 metropolitan areas. "African Americans who really succeeded live in neighborhoods where people around them have not succeeded to the same extent."

The disparities are strongest in large metro areas in the Northeast and Midwest where segregation has always been high. It's lowest in more recent booming parts of the Sun Belt.

"White middle-class families have the option to live in a community that matches their own credentials," Logan says. "If you're African American and want to live with people like you in social class, you have to live in a community where you are in the minority."

Suburbs of Atlanta and Washington, D.C., are exceptions because they are home to large, affluent black populations in established neighborhoods.

In Philadelphia, Hispanics live in neighborhoods that are 25.4% poor and affluent Hispanics in areas that are 13.7% poor.

The average white household lives in neighborhoods that are 8.4% poor. But fast-growing cities in Nevada, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina show a much narrower gap.

Affluent blacks are more exposed to poverty than the average non-Hispanic white in all but two of the top 50 metro areas with the most black households: Las Vegas and Riverside, Calif.

"Newer growth is less segregated," says Roderick Harrison, sociologist at Howard University and at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "People are coming into neighborhoods that have not become characterized as black or white or Hispanic. They're moving in on a more equal footing."

Except for the most affluent Asians, minorities at every income level live in poorer neighborhoods than do whites with comparable incomes. Affluent Asians are actually less exposed to poverty in their neighborhoods than even affluent whites and live in whiter neighborhoods than poor Asians.

Neighborhood poverty is linked to lower-quality schools and health care and to higher crime rates.

"Even though they have income comparable to whites, they don't have access to schools or other neighborhood amenities that would be comparable to those available to white families," Harrison says. "Some better-off black and Hispanic families are nevertheless living with the same problems poor blacks and Hispanics are living with."

Variations in income

People with household incomes of more than $75,000 live in neighborhoods with this share of poor households (incomes less than $40,000):

Metro area Where affluent whites live Affluent blacks Affluent Hispanics Affluent Asians New York 8.90% 16.60% 15.90% 10.90% Los Angeles 9.10% 15.20% 14.30% 10.80% Chicago 7.50% 17.90% 12.70% 8.40% Houston 9.90% 14.70% 14.40% 10.20% Philadelphia 6.70% 18.40% 13.70% 8.40% Boston 8.30% 14.80% 14.20% 11.20% Atlanta 8.90% 12.70% 11.10% 8.90% Las Vegas 7.80% 8.90% 10.90% 7.80% USA 8.90% 13.90% 13% 8.70%

Source: John Logan, Brown University sociologist and director of the US2010 Project