Tom sends along a link to a recent Census article in the Washington Post, which points out that affluent blacks and Hispanics throughout the U.S. live in neighborhoods noticeably poorer than low-income whites.

The two exceptions are in Washington D.C. and Atlanta, where affluent blacks and Hispanics live in neighborhoods on par with the neighborhoods of low-income whites.  Why the exception?

Prince George’s County near Washington and DeKalb County outside Atlanta are home to many African Americans with college degrees and good incomes, pushing up the average for their regions.

As a result, blacks and Hispanics in both cities who earned more than $75,000 lived in neighborhoods that were virtually the same as neighborhoods populated by whites earning under $40,000, as measured by average income, poverty rates, education levels, home values and housing vacancies.

“Income, and being successful in class terms, does not necessarily put you in a different kind of neighborhood,” said John Logan, a Brown University sociologist who analyzed census data in his study released Tuesday.

The article doesn’t provide much in the way of answers, Tom sums up the article nicely when he says, “…above all, it seems to highlight the error of simplistic notions about why people choose housing that they do and what policies affect those choices.”

Interesting to think about in relation to our recent discussions about race in Decatur.