I’m working on a project involving black attitudes about people with HIV/AIDS, and was doing some more citation digging. Came across this nugget that I don’t think I’ve seen before–or at least not recently, it is taken from my personal files:

A study was conducted to determine whether the level of black socioeconomic status is related to the level of black residential segregation in the city and suburbs of Detroit. Data were drawn from the U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 Summary Tape Files 4-A, and the indexes of dissimilarity D and isolation P were used to measure segregation and isolation between blacks and whites at the same level of occupation, income, or education. Findings reveal that residential segregation between blacks and whites remained high in both city and the suburbs in spite of comparable socioeconomic status. It is noted that at every socioeconomic level, blacks in the suburbs were more isolated than blacks in the city.

This piece was written by Joe T. Darden and Sameh M. Kamel and is entitled Black Residential Segregation in the City and Suburbs of Detroit: Does Socio-economic Status Matter? Now there are some serious questions about generalizability, because the Detroit area is one of the most segregated areas of the country. But particularly given my previous post about the New Poor, it’d be interesting to see how blacks in the suburbs–who as the article notes are even more isolated than blacks in the city– are faring. In fact, depending on how the wind blows–if whites become less rather than more progressive in light of their plight–we may end up seeing suburban blacks return to the city in droves for matters of safety and comfort more than anything else.