US urban black segregation increased sharply after 1950 but only in larger cities

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. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 382

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Massey & Denton’s American Apartheid and the mechanics of hypersegregation; also resonates with the ‘race-as-class’ theme linking to this project’s focus on how systemic arrangements produce disparity without explicit intent. — connects to: Post-1950 segregation deepened only where black populations were large — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 382; Racial segregation shaped even which side of town held reunions; Atlanta’s larger black population drove faster residential racial change than in northern cities — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 38
• CANDY: The jump from 2 to 40 majority-black cities over forty years is a striking, quotable fact.
• QUESTION: Why did small cities with small black populations desegregate while large cities resegregated? Interesting mechanism question worth chasing.