Providence-Fall River-Warwick, MA-RI

SEGREGATION: DISSIMILARITY INDICES

The dissimilarity index measures the relative separation or integration of groups across all neighborhoods of a city or metropolitan area. If a city's white-black dissimilarity index were 65, that would mean that 65% of white people would need to move to another neighborhood to make whites and blacks evenly distributed across all neighborhoods.

Dissimilarity Indices
Dissimilarity Index Percent of
With Whites* Population** Total Population
White* -- 781,493 81.16%
Black* 65.5 38,934 4.04%
American Indian* 59.7 3,871 0.40%
Asian* 53.5 22,383 2.32%
Native Hawaiian* 85.9 273 0.03%
Other* 71.7 8,168 0.85%
Two or More Races* 47.1 19,353 2.01%
White/Black* 53.0 2,708 0.28%
White/American Indian* 46.1 2,166 0.22%
White/Asian* 49.1 1,992 0.21%
White/Other* 63.3 4,868 0.51%
Other Combinations* -- 7,619 0.79%
Hispanic 70.7 88,411 9.18%
Total Population -- 962,886 100.00%

* Non-Hispanic only.

* When a group's population is small, its dissimilarity index may be high even if the group's members are evenly distributed throughout the area. Thus, when a group's population is less than 1,000, exercise caution in interpreting its dissimilarity indices.

Source: William H. Frey and Dowell Myers' analysis of Census 2000; and the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN).

Home | About | Help | Contact | Use Policy