The problem of racial segregation in housing has been an enduring one in the United States. Particularly in older metropolitan areas, there are large sections of cities populated with only African American citizens or Hispanic citizens. This residential form of racial segregation has proven highly resistant to reform and, in certain cities, is getting worse.
A recent study by the University of California at Berkeley looked at housing segregation in all 50 states, including Colorado. It found high levels of residential racial segregation in two places in Colorado. One was the Denver metropolitan area. The other was the rural agriculture counties of southern Colorado.
Denver Metro was found to be one of only two metropolitan areas in Colorado with a substantial number of African American citizens. Denver Metro is about 5% African American, as is the Colorado Springs metropolitan area. Throughout the remainder of Colorado, the Cal-Berkeley researchers did not find sufficient numbers of African American residents to be able to measure racial discrimination in housing.
Within the Denver metropolitan area, the most segregated section of African American housing was in northeast Denver extending outward toward Commerce City. There also were large numbers of African Americans living in minority segregated areas of the city of Aurora, a major city within Denver Metro.
Incidentally, the Cal-Berkeley researchers were fascinated with Aurora. They devoted a special section of their report to praising Colorado’s third largest city for its high percentages of minority Americans living successfully together in one community.
The study found a large segregated white area west of Denver in the general region around Conifer and Evergreen. On the other hand, well-integrated neighborhoods were in River North (RINO) in Denver and in Littleton, Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, and Arvada,
After measuring the high racial segregation areas of Denver Metro against the racially integrated areas, the Cal-Berkeley researchers ranked Denver the 79th most residentially racially segregated metropolitan area in the United States. On the rating scale of 221 metropolitan areas, one (1) was the most racially segregated and 221 was the most racially integrated.
That 79th ranking put Denver Metro toward the high end of the middle third of United States metropolitan areas where housing segregation is concerned. The highest cities on the list for residential racial segregation were mainly large cities on the East and West coasts and in the upper Midwest, such as New York City, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Outside the Denver and Colorado Springs metropolitan areas, housing segregation in Colorado mainly affects Hispanic citizens. That is particularly true in southern Colorado. High levels of housing segregation were found in five southern Colorado counties. In each case, high levels of residential racial segregation were accompanied by high percentages of Hispanic citizens.
The exact figures are Huerfano County, 31% Hispanic; Saguache County, 38% Hispanic; Rio Grande County, 40% Hispanic; Alamosa County, 47% Hispanic, and Costilla County, 57% Hispanic.
This is a unique situation. Theses five southern Colorado counties were among the first places to be successfully settled in Colorado. Hispanic settlers came up the Rio Grande River from New Mexico in the early 1850s and founded the first towns in Colorado, such as San Luis in Costilla County. These Hispanic communities have been there a long time and are proud of their founding role in the history of Colorado.
Four counties on the high prairies of the Eastern Plains of Colorado qualified as highly residentially segregated for Hispanics. They are Phillips County (county seat, Holyoke), Morgan County (Fort Morgan), Lincoln County (Hugo), and Otero County (La Junta).
Midway between highly residentially segregated and residentially integrated, the University of California at Berkeley researchers created a category labeled low-medium racially segregated. A number of rural counties in Colorado were in this low-medium category. In particular the skiing counties high in the Rocky Mountains qualified as low-medium segregated.
Skiing counties with low-medium housing segregation include Grand (Winter Park), Gunnison (Crested Butte), Pitkin (Aspen), Routt (Steamboat), and San Miguel (Telluride).
Other places in Colorado with low-medium housing segregation were Boulder County, the Fort Collins-Loveland area, Greeley, Parker, Durango, and Grand Junction.
Only two communities in Colorado were rated by the Cal-Berkeley researchers as residentially racially integrated. They were Pueblo County and the Colorado Springs metropolitan area.
What is the significance of these findings? The researchers at the University of California repeatedly made the point that minority children raised in racially segregated communities get poorer grades in school, are less likely to go to college, and make much less money throughout their working lives than minority children raised in racially integrated neighborhoods.
In Denver Metro, the solution to this problem could be to implement equal-opportunity home sales and home loans combined with affordable housing programs to create more racially integrated communities. In southern Colorado, direct aid for better schools and job training could be administered in existing historic Hispanic neighborhoods.
Bob Loevy is a retired professor of political science at Colorado College. To review the Cal-Berkeley study, google “Roots of Racial Residential Segregation.”
This content was originally published here.