The 25 Most Segregated Cities In America

Racial segregation in America is lasting longer than anyone expected.

The average black person lives in a neighborhood that is 45 percent black, even though blacks represent only 13 percent of the population, according to professors John Logan and Brian Stults at Brown and Florida State.

Logan and Stults analyzed 2010 Census data with a dissimilarity index, which determines the percentage of one group that would have to move to a different neighborhood to eliminate segregation. A score above 60 shows very high segregation.

While the professors evaluated segregation for pairs of racial groups, we wanted to compare overall segregation. To create an approximate ranking of metropolitan statistical areas, we weighted white-black, white-Hispanic, and white-Asian dissimilarity scores by minority population.

We mapped these areas using the Racial Dot Map from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.