Data Sources

This study uses data about neighborhoods from the 1990 and 2000 census and corresponding data on public elementary schools gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics.  In the school data students are classified as non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, Asian, and other races.  We have organized census data into these same categories, although shifts in census reporting between 1990 and 2000 complicate matters.  In 2000 for the first time the census tabulated multiple races for individuals.  In this study we treat as “Hispanic?all persons who identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino origin, regardless of their reported race.  “Non-Hispanic blacks?are those who identified as black, alone or in combination with any other race.  “Non-Hispanic whites?are those who identified as white alone.  “Asians?include Asians and Pacific Islanders, alone or in combination with another race; these also include a small number of Hispanic Asians, who are therefore double-counted in this study.  “Other race?is calculated as the difference between the sum of these four groups and the total population.  This coding creates as much consistency as possible between 1990 and 2000 population counts, and between the census and school data sources.

The region studied includes a seven-county area around Boston (formally, the Boston NECMA), with a total population of over 5 million.  The City of Boston is by far the single largest community in this area, but with a population under 600,000 it accounts for only about a tenth of the region’s residents.  The region also includes a number of densely settled cities and towns, many with roots in the 19^th Century and some that are officially designated as “central cities?by the federal government.  Closest to Boston itself are Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Malden, Somerville, and Waltham.  Further west are Worcester, Leominster, and Fitchburg.  Gloucester, Lawrence and Lowell are to the north, and Attleboro, Brockton, Fall River, and New Bedford to the south.  Altogether these 17 “other cities?have well over a million residents, considerably outnumbering the City of Boston.  The rest of the region, with over 3 million people, is treated here collectively as residential suburbs, or more simply, the suburbs.  As we will see, distinguishing between the City of Boston, other cities, and suburbs is central to understanding how segregation and place inequality are organized in this metropolis.