Study: Segregation Declines Across U.S.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

As people in Istanbul talk of economic segregation, a report in America examines racial segregation. The study finds that we are living in less segregated neighborhoods than in the past.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

The examination of Census data comes from the Manhattan Institute, which explores urban issues from a free market perspective. Two academics looked at Census figures and found the segregation of African-Americans has reached its lowest point in a century.

INSKEEP: Fair housing laws allowed African-Americans into white neighborhoods. Black people have moved into suburbs. White people have moved into formerly all-black center city neighborhoods which have gentrified.

MONTAGNE: To be clear, it's not that racial differences have vanished in American neighborhoods. Chicago, for example, remains heavily segregated. Maybe you know a neighborhood that's almost all black or white.

INSKEEP: But the study concludes that entirely white urban neighborhoods, those with exactly zero black residents, have become all but extinct. This is NPR News.

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