December
4, 2002, 9:05 a.m. Misreading
the Tea Leaves
The Census Bureau’s
metropolitan-segregation report.
By Wendell
Cox
ast
week's release of U.S. Census Bureau residential-segregation data provided
local media an opportunity to heap guilt on their citizenry. The data
ranked 43 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas on various measures
of segregation and found wide disparities.
In third-worst Cleveland,
the Plain Dealer quoted Cleveland State University professor Dennis
Keating who blamed a lack of leadership for that community's continuing
residential segregation. In fourth worst St. Louis, Post-Dispatch columnist
Greg Freeman said that "trying to do something about it would be
the right thing to do," while similarly laying the blame on a lack
of leadership.
How is it that residential
segregation is so much more pronounced in Milwaukee (this year's #1),
Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Newark, and Cincinnati than in Orange County,
San Jose, Virginia Beach, Tampa, or San Diego which were the least segregated?
Why is it that metropolitan areas in the same region score so differently?
Halfway between #3 Cleveland and #6 Cincinnati on Interstate-71 lies Columbus,
which ranks at #22, exactly in the middle of the 43 metropolitan areas
studied. How can it be that scores can vary so widely among adjacent metropolitan
areas? Los Angeles ranks 19, yet Riverside-San Bernardino ranks 26, and
Orange County 43? Close by San Diego ranks nearly as high at 39. Is it
that households search out segregated neighborhoods more in Cleveland
and Cincinnati than in Columbus? Is racism more rampant in Los Angeles
than in Orange County, Riverside-San Bernardino, or San Diego? How can
it be that Americans, who watch the same television, shop at the same
chain stores, and read the same monopoly newspapers, can be so different
— even at the local level? Surely understanding this is a prerequisite
to providing the leadership to raise Milwaukee and Detroit to the level
of Atlanta or Dallas, much less Orange County or San Jose, where strong
moral leadership has presumably been rewarded with such positive results.
But there is something
else operating here. The differences in metropolitan segregation data
can be explained almost completely based upon population-growth rates.
There is a strong statistical correlation to the effect that segregation
is higher where growth rates have been lower, and segregation is lower
where growth rates have been higher. This is shown by an analysis of African-American
segregation in the 40 metropolitan areas outside New England (the three
New England metropolitan areas were excluded due to data comparability
difficulties).
The ten slowest-growing
metropolitan areas from 1960 (the last census before anti-housing-discrimination
laws) had an average segregation rank of eight. Those ranked 11 through
20 had an average segregation rank of 16. Areas ranked 21 to 30 averaged
27 and areas ranked 31 to 40 had an average rank of 31. The same relationship
is found with respect to the Census Bureau's "dissimilarity index,"
which measures the percentage of people who would need to move to achieve
the same rate of integration throughout the metropolitan area. The ten
slowest-growing metropolitan areas registered an average score of 75 percent,
the second ten were better, at 69 percent, the third ten averaged 56 percent,
and the fourth 10 (the fastest-growing areas) registered 53 percent. It
should not be all that surprising that residential segregation is largely
a function of population growth. The Census Bureau segregation data measures
history — where things changed less in 40 years, it can be expected
that segregation would have changed less as well.
None of this is to
suggest that the Census Bureau's measures of segregation are invalid.
But they can surely be misused by those more inclined to react than reflect.
Any inference that leadership in the form of guilt-laden moralization
could make things better could not be more misplaced. The people of Milwaukee
or Detroit are no less decent than citizens of Dallas or Orange County.
And their leaders have been neither less skilled nor less well intentioned
on the matter of race.
But many who used
to live in Milwaukee and Detroit have moved to Dallas, Orange County,
and other areas of the south and west that are more integrated. Growth,
not attitudes toward race, is the difference. All ten of the most-segregated
metropolitan areas in the nation are in the Rust Belt of the northeast
and midwest. All ten of these metropolitan areas has experienced far-below-average
growth, or even population loss. It is no accident that these metropolitan
areas have generally higher taxes, more-onerous regulations and more-restricted
labor markets, exactly the kinds of public policies that do so much to
drive people and businesses elsewhere. Yes, leadership is required —
leadership that would address the causes of this comparative stagnation,
one consequence of which is greater segregation. For the Milwaukee's of
the nation, leaders should focus on growth, not guilt.
—
Wendell Cox is principal of Wendell Cox Consultancy, a demographic firm
in the St. Louis area. He also serves as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire
National des Arts et Metiers in Paris.
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ast
week's release of U.S. Census Bureau residential-segregation data provided
local media an opportunity to heap guilt on their citizenry. The data
ranked 43 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas on various measures
of segregation and found wide disparities.
