Segregation in Suburbia: Ethnoburbs and Spatial Attainment in the Urban Periphery

Samuel Kye, Indiana University

Ethnoburbs—ethnic yet suburban communities of affluence—make up an increasingly larger portion of America’s metropolitan areas. By disentangling the historical overlap of racial/ethnic concentration and poverty, ethnoburbs provide an opportunity to re-assess patterns of segregation within ethnic communities more accurately racially-based in motive. Currently, however, little is known about how the emergence of ethnoburbs has impacted the residential patterns of local populations. I use a sample of census tracts within the 150 largest MSAs and the Longitudinal Tract Database to analyze how white populations have responded to the emergence of black, Hispanic, and Asian ethnoburbs, and how these patterns have evolved over time. Findings show that although less segregated than enclaves in general, ethnoburbs have segregation levels greater than enclaves in the full model for all groups. Implications and opportunities for future research are discussed.