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America’s Racially Diverse Suburbs: Opportunities and Challenges

July 20, 2012

America’s Racially Diverse Suburbs: Opportunities and Challenges (PDF)

Source: Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity (University of Minnesota)

From press release:

Racially diverse suburbs are growing faster than white suburbs, but resegregation threatens their prosperity and stability, according to a study entitled, "America’s Racially Diverse Suburbs: Opportunities and Challenges," released this week by the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Long perceived as predominantly prosperous white enclaves, suburbs are now at the cutting edge of racial, ethnic and political change in America. The study finds the number of racially diverse suburbs, municipalities ranging from 20-60 percent non-white, increased from 1,006 to 1,376 between 2000 and 2010 in the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas (a 37 percent increase). Fully 44 percent of suburban residents in these areas now live in racially diverse communities, up from 38 percent in 2000. Moreover, racially diverse suburbs are growing faster than white suburbs, and the number of diverse neighborhoods in suburbs is now more than twice the number found in central cities.

"Diverse suburbs represent some of the nation’s greatest hopes and its gravest challenges," says study co-author Myron Orfield, director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity. "The rapidly growing diversity of suburban communities suggests a degree of declining racial bias and at least the partial success of fair housing laws. But the fragile demographic stability in these newly diverse suburbs presents serious challenges for local, state and federal governments."

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Categories: race, social and cultural issues, University of Minnesota, urban issues
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