"Plessy v. Ferguson" provided the foundation for a system of segregation and exclusion that adversely affected African Americans throughout the twentieth century. Segregation was perpetuated by federal policies. During the 1940s and 1950s, the federal government facilitated the construction of suburban communities with Veterans…

In "Striving in Common," Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kara S. Finnigan seek to build a bridge between two largely disparate, yet interconnected, conversations--those among education reformers on the one hand, and urban reformers on the other. In this carefully considered volume, the authors show how the challenges faced by urban schools…

The purpose of this "Equity by Design" brief is to provide information to parents, community members, and school district leaders and teachers about the relationship between housing policy and school policy. Specifically, this brief provides a succinct history of U.S. housing policy, discusses some current educational policies that…

This article reconstructs the story behind "Freeman v. Pitts" (1992), one of the main US Supreme Court cases that made it easier for school districts to terminate court desegregation orders and that, in turn, helped to propel a widely documented trend: the resegregation of southern schools. The case in part hinged on the question of…

When the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was killed by a white Ferguson police officer in August, researcher Richard Rothstein put his other projects aside to investigate a question that many otherwise well-informed people were asking--Why did this St. Louis suburb so closely resemble the stereotype of an urban ghetto, with pervasive poverty…

Minorities contributed to all of metro Chicago's net population growth during the 1990s, with consistently high segregation levels for blacks and increasing segregation rates for suburban Latinos. With the number of whites declining in the city and unchanged in the suburbs, Latinos have been the overwhelming driver of population growth. Asians…

This paper examines patterns of racial change and segregation over the 1990s in the Boston metropolitan area and in three sub-areas, emphasizing whites, blacks, Asians, and Latinos. Soaring minority populations have transformed the city of Boston into a majority-minority urban core and made several satellite cities increasingly multiethnic. The…

This paper examines patterns of racial change and segregation over the 1990s in the San Diego metropolitan area, the city of San Diego, and the suburbs, emphasizing whites, blacks, Asians, and Latinos. Minorities contributed to all of metro San Diego's net population growth during the 1990s, with consistently high segregation levels for urban…

Assesses the state of black residential segregation since the court case "Shelley v. Kraemer." Focus is placed on metropolitan areas generally and on St. Louis and Detroit, in particular. It is concluded that blacks have made little progress in reducing segregation in housing since the 1948 court case that outlawed restrictive covenants…