America's suburbs are becoming more diverse, but tenuously so, a study has found.
The study, conducted by Myron Orfield and Thomas Luce at the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School and released Friday, determined that the number of racially diverse suburbs increased by 37 percent between 2000 and 2010, and diverse suburbs are growing more quickly than majority-white suburbs.
The findings, which draw on data from the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas, also underscore shifting demographic trends, which indicate that minority groups will be in the majority in only a few decades.
“People that grow up in diverse communities are comfortable living and working in the multiracial society we're going to become,†Mr. Orfield said.
Diverse communities strike a fragile balance that can easily be lost over time, the study found. Once the communities fell back into segreg ation, they tended to remain that way.
“The frightening thing is they don't stay stable and we don't have a plan to keep them stable,†Mr. Orfield said. “We haven't finished with the issues of discrimination in the housing market that make these things unstable.â€
Those issues, although technically outlawed in large part by the Fair Housing Act, which was passed in 1968 and amended substantially in 1988, persist because of mortgage lending discrimination, a lack of affordable houses and rentals, the manner in which school districts draw their boundaries, and racial steering, wherein real estate agents show homes with a neighborhood's demographics in mind.
“What this report reinforces is the need to thinking about a new housing policy for the country,†said Bruce Katz, the director of the Metropolitan Policy Project at the Brookings Institution. He added, “The question is whether we're doing it in a smart or stupid way. Some places have been doing it smartly and the end result is opportunity.â€
Among those places that the study found to be acting smartly was the Oak Park neighborhood of Chicago, where the community has made a concerted effort to maintain racial diversity, in part through free assistance for those seeking housing.
In other diverse suburbs, too, such as Montgomery County in Maryland or the Louisville, Ky., area, desegregation was often a function of effort. Cities in the North and the Midwest, Mr. Orfield said, showed the least progress.
It's a nontrivial issue, because living in a suburb can often afford minority groups access to better schools and resources, while fostering a sense of community that encourages civic engagement and a host of other benefits.
“More communities need to work on remaining stable,†Mr. Orfield said. “It's not just something that happens; it's something that communities need to consciously attempt to do.â€
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