American Communites Project

 

Metropolitan Area Rankings: Children


On the following pages, we provide a summary of population counts and segregation scores for people under age 18 in the 331 metropolitan areas in the 2000 Census. While we provide data for the complete list of metro areas, we strongly suggest that you use caution in interpreting scores for areas with very small racial/ethnic group populations. For many purposes, it is more meaningful to focus on the 50 metro areas with the largest numbers of group members, as we have in our analysis of national trends.

Recognizing that some users are interested in smaller places, the following tables are set up to make it easy to see the national ranking of all 331 metro areas. In each table, click on the column that you would like to see ranked, and the table will be resorted on that column.

Remember that values of the index of dissimilarity in areas with small group sizes are very sensitive to change in population size. In such areas, even a small increase or decrease in the size of the group can cause a large increase or decrease in the dissimilarity index. This change is not necessarily indicative of a real change in the residential experience of the average group member. As a reminder, we have displayed in red the names of areas where one of the groups in the sorted column has a small population total (under 50,000 for Hispanics and blacks, under 20,000 for Asians). While these cutoffs are somewhat arbitrary, they are provided as an aide in identifying areas that should be interpreted with caution.

Because exposure indices are inherently closely linked to the relative sizes of groups in the total population, we do not recommend making comparisons in these measures across all metro areas. Such rankings would mainly reflect the racial and ethnic composition of the areas, rather than the extent of segregation within them.


Choose the data you would like to view

Ethnic/racial group populations: View sortable list     View description
Dissimilarity Index: View sortable list     View description