Copyright 2001 Boston Herald Inc.

The Boston Herald

July 29, 2001 Sunday ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 001

LENGTH: 1343 words

HEADLINE: Out in the 'burbs - Study: Census finds few blacks in suburban Boston

BYLINE: By Kay Lazar

BODY:

A new report reveals that record numbers of minorities have moved to the suburbs across the nation during the past decade, yet Boston's 'burbs remain overwhelmingly white.

"It is very striking," said John Logan, a sociologist at the University at Albany who authored the study, "The New Ethnic Enclaves in America's Suburbs."

Logan, who has studied population trends and their impacts for the past 30 years, based his new study of 330 metropolitan areas on data from the 2000 Census.

What Logan found particularly striking is that Boston's central city area is 20 percent black, yet just 2.8 percent of the region's blacks live in the 'burbs. By comparison, Logan found that blacks make up 25 percent of New York City, and half - 12.6 percent - of the region's blacks live in the suburbs.

Logan also notes that other large cities, like Philadelphia, have a 44 percent black population, and 10 percent of the region's blacks live in Philly's suburbs.

Of the nation's largest suburban areas with measurable percentages of black residents, Boston's 'burbs ranked nearly dead last - 44th out of 50, Logan said.

"It's not that African-Americans in the Boston area are poorer than they are in Cincinnati, New York or Philadelphia. And I don't think that Boston's suburbs are that much richer than other suburban areas," Logan said. "It must be related to the area's legacy of race relations and the openness to new groups."

Logan's probe of America's suburbs also found that minorities, in general, are not settling in the same neighborhoods with white residents. Instead, Logan found, minorities are forming their own racial and ethnic enclaves, much the way immigrants of a generation ago did when they settled in the nation's cities.

That phenomenon, Logan said, is creating a two-tiered system in America's suburbs because minority communities tend to be poorer and often end up with lower-quality public schools, police protection and other community services.

Underscoring that point, a report released earlier this month from Harvard University found that, despite growing populations of Hispanic and black children in the nation's schools, the systems are increasingly segregated. The Harvard report cited segregated neighborhoods as one of the major reasons for the growing isolation.

"People don't set out to segregate themselves. People segregate themselves because of the reaction to them from daily living," said Miren Uriarte, a professor of human services at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and the interim director of the Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy.

Uriarte said major obstacles for Latinos entering Boston's suburbs are the high cost of housing and the lack of public transportation, especially because many Latinos have young families and plenty of bills.

Compared to the rest of the country, Boston's 'burbs ranked 34th out of 50 for the percentage of Hispanics in suburbia, according to Logan's report.

The Gaston Institute's analysis of the 2000 Census shows that Bay State communities with the fastest growing Latino populations are the ones with more affordable-housing stocks. And most on the list could hardly be described as leafy suburbs. They are: Lynn; Fall River; Chelsea; Worcester; Springfield; Waltham; Quincy; Lawrence; New Bedford and Leominster.

"People always ask me, 'Why do Dominicans or Cubans live together?' Part of it is comfortableness with sameness." Uriarte said. "But the real issue is rejection they feel in the broader society."

For Asian-Americans in suburban Boston, however, the story is quite different.

Logan's new report shows that Boston's suburbs ranked above average - 19th out of 50 - in the percentage of Asians settling in suburbia. And Logan's analysis shows that the percentage of Asians in Boston's suburbs doubled from 1990 to 2000.

"Oftentimes Asians are perceived as a model minority," said Ratha Paul Yem, executive director of the Cambodian American League in Lowell. Yem said that perception has smoothed Asians' entre into suburbia.

Also, Yem said, many Asians tend to live in extended families, with brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents pooling finances to buy one home and pay the mortgage.

"(Asians) who have a business in (Boston's) Chinatown purchase a home in Wellesley or Lexington," Yem said. "They want to take their kids out of it, and put them in a school system they perceive as a better system."

In the Merrimack Valley, Yem said Asian families may still own a business in Lowell, where most of their clientele remain, but will pool their resources and buy a $ 300,000 home in Tyngsboro or Dracut.

Buying a home with a nice yard and in a good school system were certainly key factors when the Robersons, who are black, chose Milton three years ago.

The Robersons' choice mirrored a population shift documented in a 2000 Harvard University study. The study found that almost half of the purchases made by African-American and Hispanic homebuyers outside of Boston were concentrated in Milton and six other communities - out of a total of 126 communities. The six others were: Chelsea; Randolph; Everett; Lynn; Somerville and Malden.

"There are established people of color in the community, who have been here for years. You know there is a track record. It is inviting that way," said Kerby Roberson, 43, a lawyer. His wife, Dr. Gabrielle Bercy-Roberson, 34, is an OB-GYN at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. They have a 19-month-old son.

Last year, Kerby Roberson became the first black to run for the Milton Board of Selectmen, finishing last in a field of three. Bercy-Roberson also ran, unsuccessfully, for a seat on the town's Board of Health. This year, Roberson again ran unsuccessfully, but finished second.

"There are a lot of minorities, Black, Asian, Hispanic who are moving in town. We cannot stay as outsiders," Roberson said of his decision to run for office. "My child is growing up here. I need to know that I have a say in what's going on, and what affects him."

Roberson described running for elective office in a suburb that is still mostly white as "not for the feint of heart.

"Most people would not feel comfortable going to a candidate's night and see no black faces in the audience," Roberson said. "It's very, very intimidating."

Roberson said many minorities in Milton are sitting on the sidelines.

"There is a lack of involvement on the part of the minority community," he said. "When you do run, you do hope to galvanize, to make people understand that we need to participate, to come out and to vote."

The Roberson's, as do most of Milton's minorities, live in the town's west side, in the sections bordering Dorchester, Mattapan and Hyde Park. Recent school-enrollment figures from the west side show that, for the first time, minorities make up 51 percent of the elementary school population. Enrollment at the elementary schools on Milton's east side, which is predominantly white, is also majority white.

Yet Roberson and others say the color walls are slowly coming down in their suburb. For instance, a committee is being set up to brainstorm ways of attracting minority families on Milton's west side to send their children to school programs on the east side, and vice-versa.

And the Milton Diversity Alliance, a coalition of church and civic groups, has been sponsoring programs to enhance race relations.

The Rev. George Welles, rector at the Church of our Savior in East Milton, says he has noticed more minorities moving to the town's east side in the past year. Welles and his wife, who are white, have five adopted black children.

"This is a relatively progressive community," Welles said. "One that looks forward to embracing all of the challenges."