The Washington Post created some interesting maps that show levels of diversification in various American cities. They categorize cities like Chicago as examples of legacy segregation, where cities like Houston indicate rapid diversification.
The green and purple diversity index maps are especially interesting. One effect they note is that cities with highly diversified suburbs:
Suburbs like Annandale, Va., and Silver Spring, Md., showed large increases in racial ethnic diversity compared to almost 30 years ago.
Michael Bader, an assistant professor of sociology at American University in D.C., attributes part of suburban diversity to newly built housing.
"A lot of those areas were developed after the Fair Housing Act was implemented," he said. "If you're building housing and you're subject to the Fair Housing Act you shouldn't have in those particular units the legacy effects of segregation."
Click through to see lots of city-level maps. One unrelated item of interest is how clear the railroad line towns are across the Great Plains in the race map – the small, evenly-spaced dots in relatively straight lines.
• America is more diverse than ever — but still segregated (Washington Post)
