Remaking white residential segregation: metropolitan diversity and neighborhood change in the United States

From 1990 to 2010, white tracts fell from 82% to 70% of all metropolitan tracts. This loss was concentrated among the most segregated white tracts – those with low diversity. White tracts that were moderately diverse actually doubled in number between 1990 and 2010 although this increase was insufficient to cancel the loss of low diversity white tracts. We model the effects of metropolitan characteristics on white-tract change by metropolitan area. Greater metropolitan-scale diversity increases the probability that low-diversity white tracts transition to moderate-diversity white. Moderately diverse white tracts, however, become more stable with increased diversity. A large metropolitan percentage of blacks or the foreign born reverses this stabilizing effect, increasing the probability that moderately diverse white tracts transition to non-white tracts. Overall, the results suggest a reconfiguration rather than a dissolving of white dominated neighborhood space in response to increased metropolitan area diversity.