The Emergence of Stable Racially and Ethnically Diverse Urban Communities: A Case Study of Neighborhoods in Nine U.S. Cities
(6/14/1996 - 6/15/1998)
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development worked with the Policy Research Action Group (PRAG) to study the factors central to creating and sustaining viable, inclusive, diverse, stable urban neighborhoods. In each of nine cities presented here: Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown, and Chicago Lawn (Chicago); West Mt. Airy (Philadelphia); Vollintine-Evergreen (Memphis); Park Hill (Denver); Sherman Park (Milwaukee); Jackson Heights, Fort Greene (New York City); Southeast Seattle (Seattle); San Antonio and Fruitvale (Oakland, California); Houston Heights (Houston).
PRAG coordinated a team of researchers and local community-based partners to: interview residents, businesspeople, and community leaders; review key documents; and otherwise assess the basis for diversity and stability within these special neighborhoods. Each team also drew on prior studies and census analyses.
Two distinct models of stable, diverse communities emerge from this study. The first model includes deliberate efforts to maintain a balance of African-American and Caucasian residents in an already self-aware, middle-income neighborhood. The second model is reflected in a multi-ethnic, multiracial neighborhood -- "beyond black and white" -- that focuses on a community identity and on maintaining economic and racial stability as a byproduct of other assets.
An issue titled "Racially and Ethnically Diverse Communities" of Cityscape: a Journal of Policy Development and Research was published presenting unique case studies of each stable, racially and ethnically diverse urban community. In addition to this report, co-researcher Michael Maly wrote a more detailed book using much of the findings of this project: Beyond Segregation: Multiracial and Multiethnic Neighborhoods in the United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005).
Research Team:
P. Nyden, CURL and Sociology
M. Maly, Graduate Fellow, Sociology
B. Peterman, Chicago State University
J. Lukehart, Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities
Multiple researchers from 8 other cities.
Community Partners:
Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities