The Social Integration of Selected American Cities

A Children's Bureau publication makes possible the study of community integration through the computation of a Welfare Effort Index for twenty-eight urban areas. These results are compared with a Crime Index computed from Federal Bureau of Investigation reports. A consistent negative relations is found for twenty of the twenty-eight cities. Further validation of the indices is obtained by comparing them, for the "consistent" cities included in his study, with Thorndike's unpublished data. Examination of his data suggests that well-integrated cities (1) have supporte schools, libraries, and recreational facilities strongly, (2) are characterized by a large proportion of native whites to nonwhites, (3) have few mothers gainfully employed, and, possibly, (4) have a relatively low disparity of income between classes. Study of the "inconsistent" cities suggests two further hypotheses: (1) a race problem presents a serious bar to integration even when there is a strong welfare effort and (2) there many be a natural history of community integration as a city grows.