February 13, 2024
Newly released community integration data from the US Census Bureau shows the levels of racial and ethnic segregation in the region are very gradually declining, while the levels of income inequality have remained the same. Explore more community integration data in today's #TrackingTuesday.
Our regional long-range plan, Connections 2050, sets a goal to foster racially and socioeconomically integrated neighborhoods, and advance environmental justice for all the region’s inhabitants. While there are benefits to neighborhoods that share common cultures—such as high social cohesion within the community—diversity has been shown to improve quality of life for everyone. When neighborhoods diversify in income levels, significant gains are seen in essential resources like public education, green space, and infrastructure, and children are provided opportunities they might not have if they were growing up in more income-segregated spaces. Research also indicates that greater community integration increases social cohesion between racial and ethnic populations.
Newly released community integration data from the US Census Bureau shows that levels of racial and ethnic segregation in the region slightly declined over a 32 year period from 1990 to 2022. In 1990, 68.6% of the region's population would have needed to move in order for all the region’s neighborhoods to have the same racial and ethnic diversity as the region as a whole. In 2022, this was down to 51.8 of the population needing to move in order for each neighborhood to match the region’s diversity— a decrease of about half a percent per year over the last 32 years. While this shows the region has very gradually made progress in integrating its neighborhoods, there is still a long way to go to achieve racial and ethnic diversity.
The levels of income segregation essentially remained the same over the same 32 year period. In 1990, 41.1% of the region's population would have needed to move in order to have equally diverse neighborhoods by income throughout the region. In 2022, this figure remained nearly unchanged at 41.0%. This shows how the region essentially made no progress in improving the mix of more and less affluent people living in its neighborhoods during that time. These figures reflect a region still largely segregated by race, ethnicity, and income, despite the very gradual progress in diversifying its neighborhoods by race and ethnicity. To see the community integration data further broken down at various regional geographies, go to the “How are we doing?” tab in the Community Integration Indicator.
Since no single indicator can give a full picture on the region’s progress toward obtaining the vision outlined in its Long-Range Plan, get more info on how our region’s communities are evolving from these related Tracking Progress indicators: Educational Attainment, Housing Permits, Housing Affordability, Income, Job Growth, Land Consumption, Mortgage Lending, and Population Growth. Download the data for your own use through DVRPC’s Data Catalog accessed by a link under each chart.