A City Can Be Diverse, but its Neighborhoods Might Not Be. DC Scores Poorly on Both Measures

The diversity of each census tract in DC.

How do you measure a city's diversity? If a city has a lot of different racial and ethnic groups in their own segregated sections, is that diverse? A blog called priceonomics recently ranked major American cities on diversity by looking at the percentage of major racial and ethnic groups within the city's limits. The District of Columbia came in 21st, slightly less diverse than Oklahoma City. 

However, while this analysis is useful, it it doesn't reveal whether the neighborhoods in each city are themselves diverse, or whether the city boundary just encompasses some all-black areas, other all-white areas, and so on.

If we modify this methodology to measure the average diversity of a city's neighborhoods, rather than of the city as a whole, we are able to quantify how integrated these place are. On this new measure, the District performs even worse.

A Neighborhood-Level Calculation Changes the Results

Consider Chicago. With roughly equal-sized black, white, and Latino populations, the Windy City ranks as the fifth most diverse city in the country on the priceonomics scale. However, if we instead use priceonomics' same methodology (it took the percentage of black, white, Asian, Latino, and other people in the city, then used a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to combine those numbers into a single score) for each of Chicago's individual census tracts, then take the weighted average, Chicago suddenly drops to 38th out of 45.

(Click a city's name to view its map)

Name	New Rank	Diversity Index (Neighborhood)	Original Rank	Diversity Index (Citywide)	Rank Change
Sacramento	1	0.324778	2	0.249345	1
Oakland	2	0.367682	1	0.234220	-1
Long Beach	3	0.404824	4	0.285367	1
Fresno	4	0.419840	15	0.332616	11
San Jose	5	0.419912	6	0.295963	1
San Francisco	6	0.420050	8	0.311810	2
Las Vegas	7	0.439887	17	0.338106	10
San Diego	8	0.468351	9	0.312709	1
Fort Worth	9	0.478435	13	0.324671	4
Albuquerque	10	0.482462	27	0.399064	17
Charlotte	11	0.495846	16	0.336905	5
Boston	12	0.496351	7	0.310615	-5
Austin	13	0.500739	19	0.371211	6
Oklahoma City	14	0.502493	20	0.374375	6
Virginia Beach	15	0.510308	33	0.455436	18
Raleigh	16	0.512390	22	0.381092	6
Houston	17	0.518201	10	0.313724	-7
Tucson	18	0.518248	26	0.399055	8
New York	19	0.520827	3	0.260531	-16
Jacksonville	20	0.524788	25	0.398575	5
Los Angeles	21	0.526386	18	0.339228	-3
Dallas	22	0.531520	12	0.321215	-10
Denver	23	0.536938	24	0.387416	1
Nashville	24	0.538537	29	0.408857	5
Seattle	25	0.545698	37	0.476876	12
Mesa	26	0.553278	38	0.492694	12
Phoenix	27	0.556085	23	0.384986	-4
Indianapolis	28	0.565431	31	0.422630	3
Columbus	29	0.565687	32	0.430533	3
Colorado Springs	30	0.565902	41	0.528233	11
Portland	31	0.569062	43	0.539417	12
San Antonio	32	0.574919	35	0.474636	3
Kansas City	33	0.579408	28	0.399368	-5
Milwaukee	34	0.589951	11	0.320661	-23
Philadelphia	35	0.599411	14	0.331147	-21
Washington	36	0.611801	21	0.378045	-15
Omaha	37	0.613333	39	0.501041	2
Chicago	38	0.632993	5	0.290745	-33
Louisville	39	0.656964	40	0.518145	1
Memphis	40	0.670075	34	0.474338	-6
Atlanta	41	0.670933	30	0.416675	-11
Baltimore	42	0.681552	36	0.475331	-6
El Paso	43	0.706141	44	0.663345	1
Miami	44	0.732796	42	0.536259	-2
Detroit	45	0.795764	45	0.674185	0

Note: Priceonomics used the 2013 1-year American Community Survey estimates for their analysis. This analysis uses the 5-year estimates, because it is available at both the Place and Census Tract levels. As a result, the citywide index scores may vary slightly from the data presented by Priceonomics.

Chicago, as a whole, is diverse, but its neighborhoods are not. The average Chicago census tract is less diverse than a typical tract in Portland or Colorado Springs, both relatively homogeneous cities that scored near the bottom in the original citywide index. Both are close to 70% white, but the non-white population isn't all clumped in a small non-white area.


Chicago's diverse population is largely segregated. Sacramento is diverse, and so are its neighborhoods.


California cities dominate the adjusted rankings, accounting for the top six spots: Sacramento, Oakland, Long Beach, Fresno, San Jose, and San Francisco. Virginia Beach moved up 18 slots, representing the largest jump of any one city.

DC, on the other hand, drops into the bottom quartile, neck and neck with Omaha. Like Chicago (well, not quite as bad as Chicago), the District's citywide diversity doesn't extend to diversity within most of its neighborhoods.

How Citywide Diversity Relates to Neighborhood Diversity

There is a correlation between diversity in a city and diversity within its neighborhoods, although places like Chicago and DC remind us that it is not necessarily as strong relationship. Here's a scatter plot comparing the citywide and neighborhood average diversity indices for each of the 45 cities:

Diversity within neighborhoods compared to overall city diversity, with the most integrated and most segregated cities labeled.

Cities above the trend line have less diverse census tracts than the city's overall diversity would suggest. These are therefore relatively segregated. Chicago and DC fall into this category.

Miami is among the least diverse cities on the entire list (remember that according to this methodology, "diversity" only considers 5 distinct groups, lumping together, for example, everyone who identifies as Hispanic/Latino), but on a neighborhood level it's even more segregated still.

Cities below the trend line have neighborhoods that are more diverse than comparable cities at their level of citywide diversity. This group includes Sacramento, which is both diverse and integrated, as well as Portland, which is not diverse, but relatively well-integrated.

Diversity and integration are both important, and the District has a long way to go on both measures.

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington