Ethnic residential concentration and a ‘new spatial order?’: exploratory analyses of four United States metropolitan areas, 1980–2000

The residential segregation of four main ethnic groups over the period 1980–2000 is examined for four US metropolitan areas, within the context of an assumed difference between so‐called ‘modern’ and ‘post‐modern’ cities. Using a newly developed measure of residential concentration, that binary distinction is found wanting: Los Angeles clearly differs from New York and Chicago, especially in the desegregation of African‐Americans over the two decades, but Miami is as close to those two ‘modern’ cities in its segregation patterns as it is to Los Angeles. Overall, the findings suggest little major change during the two decades: continued high levels of segregation of whites and African‐Americans (except in Los Angeles), alongside increased segregation of Hispanics, and slightly increased segregation of Asians.