Living unequal

As a follow on to an earlier blog on racial inequality we now read that black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to live in neighborhoods with fewer important resources, like good schools, parks, and clean air, than whites are. And the difference in neighborhood quality can’t be explained by differences in household income. Exposure to poverty means more unemployment, worse schools, more health problems, and higher crime rates, says John Logan, a sociology professor at Brown University in Providence, R.I., the study’s author.

In fact, the average white household that earns less than $40,000 is in a more affluent, resource-rich neighborhood than a black or Hispanic household that earns more than $75,000, says the report “Minorities at every income level live in poorer neighborhoods than do whites with comparable incomes,” (with one exception – affluent Asians.)

Whites have remained the most isolated group since 1990. the average white household is in a neighborhood where 75 percent of the households are white, which is down from 83 percent 20 years before. Both Hispanics and blacks live, on average, in neighborhoods where about 40 percent of households are from their same racial or ethnic group. In 1990, those numbers were 47 percent for blacks and 37 percent for Hispanics.