Apart and Parcel

Originally Printed/Posted in the Washington City Paper on August 9, 2012:
Apart and Parcel: What Housing Segregation in D.C. Looks Like

For the first time since a brief moment in the 1950s, neither African-Americans nor Caucasians account for a majority of D.C.’s population. The District of Columbia is at its most diverse, but the city remains grossly divided, a reality noted with such frequency that it threatens to become a cliché. That division, though, isn’t just rhetorical or political: It’s geographic.

The persistence of black-white residential segregation reflects the nation’s inability to fully overcome the legacy of slavery, and it negatively affects education attainment, race relations, and productivity. Despite nearly a century of legal and legislative struggles to integrate our blocks, segregation by race is still the norm in the District.