Post-1950 segregation deepened only where black populations were large

Evidence

In 1950 there were no central cities in the US that were overwhelmingly or even largely black. No city with a population larger than 100,000 had a majority black population. Forty years later there were 14 such cities including Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Gary, New Orleans, and Washington. Eleven more cities had black populations between 40 and 50 percent, including Cleveland, St. Louis, and Oakland. Among cities larger than 25,000 in 1950 just two had majority black populations, a number that had exploded to 40 by 1990. Interestingly, the increase in segregation after mid-century is characteristic only of larger cities with large black populations. There was a noticeable decline in segregation in small cities with small black populations. In the latter cases African Americans found themselves assimilated into dominant white space with little if any noticeable effect on prevailing urban arrangements or culture. By the end of the Civil Rights era, in contrast, geographic isolation of blacks in larger urban settings – the overwhelming majority of black folk – was nearly complete. The occasional resident of color in white residential space, when they could afford it, or of white residents in “nonwhite” space, when they couldn’t “do better,” or of the even more pointedly noticeable “mixed neighborhoods” are simply the exceptions proving the race-as-class, class-in-race rule. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 382

Categorization

• QUESTION: That segregation rose only in large-population cities is a striking asymmetry relevant to the reader: does the threatened-privilege dynamic intensify mainly where the out-group is numerous enough to seem threatening, and does that threshold replicate for nativity or religion?
• XREF: connects to: US urban black segregation increased sharply after 1950 but only in larger cities — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 382; Segregation shifted from within cities to between cities from the 1950s onward. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 379; Racial segregation shaped even which side of town held reunions (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• US urban black segregation increased sharply after 1950 but only in larger cities #corroborates (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 382
• Segregation shifted from within cities to between cities from the 1950s onward. #qualifies (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 379