About this project
      The U.S. census made official last year what most of us already knew -- Metro Detroit is the nation's most segregated area.
      And while many people, regardless of race, seem outwardly content living politely separate lives here, some are unaware there's a price for that preference.

Reports in this series
Go Part I: Racial Attitudes
The Detroit News looks at Metro Detroit's sometimes startling attitudes toward segregation today, the extent and reasons for racial separation and how they play out in the lives of families white and black.

Go Part II: Paying for Preferences
Segregation is the norm for Metro Detroiters, but it carries heavy costs. From segregated schools to stagnant property values to a lack of exposure to the nation's increasing diversity, we pay for our preferences.

Go Part III: Where We're Headed
Are we fated to continue living apart? If so, what will the future toll be? The Detroit News looks at the factors that could break down racial barriers, the factors that keep them standing and how living patterns in other metropolitan areas have changed.

Go Part IV: Community Forum
Calling segregation a silent curse that can no longer be ignored, more than 200 people from across Metro Detroit gathered to look for ways to close the chasm between blacks and whites.

Go Part V: The Impact of Affluence
Blacks and whites in Metro Detroit pay steep but unequal prices for their segregated living patterns. The Detroit News study found that Metro Detroit is unusual in the way that blacks and whites live apart at virtually every income level.






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Wealth doesn't stop race divide
Choice and mistrust keep blacks, whites apart
DETROIT -- The contrasts are etched in black and white: Metro Detroiters who do the same jobs and earn the same pay go home each night to very different neighborhoods, divided not by income but by race. 11/03/02

Image
David Guralnick / The Detroit News

James and Sophie Womack, with Brandi, left, and Ashley, could live anywhere. Both doctors, they chose Detroit Golf Club, where, despite their wealth, they find themselves in a neighborhood largely segregated -- blacks outnumber whites 11-to-1.

Wealth doesn't stop race divide
Part 2: Detroit's high costs
James and Sophie Womack picked their house -- a large ranch set behind black iron gates in Detroit's wealthy Golf Club neighborhood -- because it was close to their jobs. Both doctors, they earn more than enough money to buy a home almost anywhere and friends urged them to look in the wealthy neighborhoods sprouting on the fringes of Metro Detroit. 11/03/02

Wealth doesn't stop race divide
Part 3: Beyond a simple choice
The shadows of Metro Detroit's polarized racial history can be seen through an analysis of the 2000 census. 11/03/02

Stemming sprawl may aid integration
DETROIT -- The way Dan Krichbaum sees it, Metro Detroit's separate living patterns might change if fewer new suburbs were built. 11/03/02

City or suburbs, races pay for choices
Small town, Lake Erie worth the long commute to couple
MONROE TOWNSHIP -- Lake Erie is in their back yard. 11/03/02

City or suburbs, races pay for choices
Detroit golf-course home outweighs added expenses
DETROIT -- They live on the Detroit Golf Club's south course. 11/03/02

No easy answers for living patterns
DETROIT -- If economics aren't to blame for driving whites and blacks apart in Metro Detroit, what is? 11/03/02

About this report
To analyze segregation across income levels, The Detroit News calculated the "index of dissimilarity," a common measure of residential living patterns. The index compares the proportion of two groups -- wealthy whites and blacks, for instance -- in each neighborhood to that of the entire metropolitan area. 11/03/02

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