ACS Data Users Group

Hello all,

I am looking for a way to map racial segregation on either the block group or census tract level and was hoping you might have some data source suggestions. I have seen census data used to compute dissimilarity or isolation indexes (for example, http://www.censusscope.org/us/s25/rank_dissimilarity_white_black.html), but was hoping to find something at a finer grain.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions!

Thank you,

Sharon

Hi Sharon--

You should look at the work of Elizabith Roberto www.elizabethroberto.com. She has done some very interesting work using blocks and transportation and physical boundaries. She also has developed a divergence index, which allows one to see the contribution of segregation from each unit, whether blockgroup, tract or block, as well as by place.

Andy Beveridge

Sharon,

Two things. First, the Frey data are based on census tracts, even though their result are for places. Second, there is a recent article in Demography about how the somewhat noisier ACS sample affects dissimilarity measures. That will be exacerbated if you used block groups or blocks:

Measuring Residential Segregation With the ACS: How the Margin of Error Affects the Dissimilarity Index
link.springer.com/.../s13524-016-0545-z