Are U.S. Cities Effectively Desegregated?

The study, published by Edward Glaeser and Jacob L. Vigdor at the Manhattan Institute, finds that suburbanization by African Americans was one of the largest factors in curtailing residential segregation in metropolitan America. Roberts writes that the report concludes that, "all-white enclaves "are effectively extinct" and that while black urban ghettos still exist they are shriveling."

For all of the progress noted by the report, however, caveats and notes of caution were sounded by the author's colleagues, and the authors themselves. "'Residential segregation has declined pervasively, as ghettos depopulate and the nation's population center shifts toward the less segregated Sunbelt,' Glaeser and Vigdor [indicated]. 'At the same time, there has been only limited progress in closing achievement and employment gaps between blacks and whites.'"