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* | -- | 263,782 | 67.11% | |
| Black* | 60.3 | 60,297 | 15.34% | |
| American Indian* | 27.0 | 18,005 | 4.58% | |
| Asian* | 41.2 | 7,096 | 1.81% | |
| Native Hawaiian* | 72.8 | 165 | 0.04% | |
| Other* | 55.9 | 458 | 0.12% | |
| Two or More Races* | 24.7 | 15,135 | 3.85% | |
| White/Black* | 44.5 | 1,531 | 0.39% | |
| White/American Indian* | 23.2 | 8,869 | 2.26% | |
| White/Asian* | 41.8 | 943 | 0.24% | |
| White/Other* | 49.1 | 820 | 0.21% | |
| Other Combinations* | -- | 2,972 | 0.76% | |
| Hispanic | 43.5 | 28,111 | 7.15% | |
| Total | -- | 393,049 | 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).
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