State’s largest cities see rise in integration, census finds

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — Neighborhoods in Washington’s largest cities became slightly less racially segregated over the past decade, according to the 2000 Census.

Washington’s cities are more integrated than cities of similar sizes across the country, according to an Associated Press review of U.S. Census information on race in communities with more than 100,000 residents.

Bellevue had the third-highest rate of integration in the country between Asian Americans and whites in 2000. One reason is Bellevue’s booming growth; much of the city’s housing was built after the passage of anti-discrimination real estate laws.

"I don’t think it’s a race-based issue, I think it’s a class-based issue," said Akemi Matsumodo, president of the Seattle Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and a counselor at Bellevue Community College.

She lives in Seattle, in part because she wanted her son to be raised in a culturally diverse environment around other Japanese Americans. She got half her wish.

"All the Japanese Americans moved out to the Eastside. They didn’t tell me!" Matsumodo said. "He does live in a multi-ethnic environment, but he has no Japanese American friends."

While most neighborhoods experience incremental change in racial makeup over the decades, change came rapidly to Seattle’s Central District. The inner-city, traditionally black neighborhood has seen an influx of white homeowners seeking shorter commutes and less expensive older houses. The neighborhood has gone from mostly black to mostly white in a decade, although the diverse neighborhood remains a center for black culture.

Real estate agent Mark Petrak says prospective buyers of every race ask lots of questions about the Central District — about schools, crime and property values. But they rarely ask about race.

"They understand what the racial makeup is. Most are interested in the neighborhood because of the racial makeup," he said. "They want their kids to understand the world is not Wonder Bread. That’s one of the things they love about it."

Wayne Perryman, associate pastor at Mount Calvary Christian Center in the heart of the Central District, says the changes aren’t so much a departure from the past as a return to it. He says that with the small numbers of racial minorities in Seattle, the city never developed strictly racial neighborhoods of the type that persist to this day in older cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C.

"In my neighborhood growing up there were Hispanics, Japanese, Chinese, Native Americans, whites and blacks, and we’re talking about a one- or two-block radius," Perryman said. "We always have been integrated."

Perryman now lives in Mercer Island, and like many blacks who live in the suburbs, returns to his old neighborhood every week for church. He said he’s never had any problems being accepted by his neighbors in mostly white Mercer Island, but he has mixed feelings about the integration of neighborhoods.

"African Americans, like whites or anyone else, should move wherever they feel like moving," Perryman said. "But you certainly lose a sense of community … In reality, when you look at neighborhoods that are integrated, they’re not necessarily sharing their culture."

Census expert Richard Morrill, a University of Washington professor emeritus, said that after years of anti-discrimination measures in the housing market, segregation is mostly driven by economics, not race.

"Even if we had zero discrimination and an absolutely open real estate market, you’d still see fairly high levels of segregation just because of group preference," Morrill said.

For its review, the AP looked at all the places — including cities, towns and townships — listed by the Census as having more than 100,000 people.

The AP used an index of zero to 100 that can be interpreted as the percentage of one race that would have to move to another area to achieve an even racial distribution with non-Hispanic whites. Zero indicates perfect integration, and 100 indicates perfect segregation.

This method leaves out some important information, Morrill pointed out, by not calculating the integration rates between different minority groups such as Asian Americans with blacks. Tacoma, he said, would show up as an even more integrated cities if those combinations were calculated because the city has a diverse mix of racial groups, particularly in the south end.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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