Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Along with poverty, the African-American community is highly concentrated in
the center city and several satellite cities like Flint (see Figures 8.12, 8.13 and 8.14).
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
USA
MSA
Central City
suburbs
Figure 8.14.
Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint CMSA,
percentage of African-American population in total population in 2000
As in Atlanta, disparities are closely associated with racial segregation. Blacks
who left the rural poverty of the old South poured into the industrial cities of the
North between 1915 and about 1975. And, while openly discriminatory zoning was
declared illegal by the Supreme Court in 1917, real estate agents continued to
concentrate newcomers in areas exclusively inhabited by people of color. As the
community grew, residential blocks were added to the ghetto which thus progressed
from its initial core. Detroit city maps for 1970 and 2000 show the persistent legacy
of this reprehensible practice (Fair Housing Act 1968). In 1970, there was virtually
no mixing between districts where populations were either entirely black or
completely white. Diversity has increased slightly since then, but the divide remains
spectacular (see Figures 8.12 and 8.13).
The Duncan index of dissimilarity enables a preliminary assessment of the
degree of racial segregation in the metropolitan area by census tract for the
2000 census. The index is such that, theoretically, 82.5% of African-Americans
would need to change their neighborhood of residence in order to restore a perfect
racial balance, one of the highest scores in the United States, where the average
calculated for all 276 MSAs calculated by census tract is 65.2%. Under the
assumption of constant zoning, the Duncan index of dissimilarity for 1970 would
have been 87.1%.
More so even than Atlanta, blacks are concentrated in only a few towns within
the Detroit metropolitan area.
