As a public service, the American Communities Project makes information available on specific metropolitan areas and their respective city and suburban portions. We encourage users to interpret for themselves what is happening in their area.
The table below lists the topics that we are pursuing, a description of each topic, and a choice of three ways to view the data for each topic (view metro areas and cities, sortable lists or download). You will be able to compare across years, from as early as 1980. The residential segregation data include the most recent 2020 results, but other data end with 2010 or ACS 2008-2012 sources.
If you choose View Metro Areas and Cities, you will be asked to select the metropolitan region or city that you are interested in and you will be provided with data for that specific area. At the top of the page for each metro area are the names of the counties that are included, as well as the city or cities that the Census Bureau has designated as principal cities. There may also be links to principal city and suburban data.
Much of the information is available in Sortable Lists that allow you to see how metro areas compare to one another across the nation. You can also Download the data used to prepare these web pages for your own analysis.
Topic Descriptions
Residential Segregation by Race/Ethnicity - Population data (all ages) for non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic and Asian. Includes differences in residential patterns of one racial/ethnic group in relation to another (Dissimilarity index) and the racial/ethnic composition of the tract where the average member of a particular group lives (Exposure Index). Also shown is the percentage of same-group population in the census tract where the average member of a racial/ethnic group lives (Isolation Index).
Separate and Unequal - These data describe the characteristics of neighborhoods where the average member of each racial/ethnic group lives. There are links to pages that explore how neighborhood differences are related to people’s characteristics other than race/ethnicity: their income and nativity (comparing US-born to foreign-born group members).
School Segregation by Race/Ethnicity - Enrollment data for non-Hispanic white, black, Hispanic and Asian elementary school children in metro areas and school districts across the nation. Includes differences in enrollment patterns of one racial/ethnic group in relation to another (Dissimilarity index), the racial/ethnic composition of the elementary school that the average child of a particular group attends (Exposure and Isolation Indices), and the percentile ranking on state standardized tests (in 2004) of the school that the average child of a racial/ethnic group attends.
Income Segregation – These data describe the extent of family income segregation in metropolitan areas. They include several different measures of family income for all metropolitan areas from Census 1980, 1990 and 2000 and the 2007-2011 and 2012-2016 American Community Survey, based on the 2010 metropolitan boundaries.
Diversity among Hispanics and Asians -These data provide information about the growth, segregation, and neighborhoods of national origin subgroups of Hispanics and Asians.
©Spatial Structures in Social Sciences, Brown University
