Suburbs and Ethnic Residential Patterns

Residential distributions of foreign-born and second-generation groups in the suburbs of several large metropolitan areas are compared with their compatriots' segregation patterns within the central cities of these metropolises. Differences between specific first- and second-generation groups in the magnitude of their dispersion in suburbs are associated with variations in segregation between the same nationalities residing in the central cities. The changes in ethnic distributions between suburbs during a twenty-year period are similar to those occuring within the central cities for comparable populations. These results suggest that differences in the population composition of suburbs and central cities may obscure the existence of similar behavioral patterns for comparable groups in the two parts of a metropolis.