Growth Of Black Population Research Articles

Determinants of Black Suburbanization: Regional and Suburban Size Category Patterns

This study analyzes the movement of blacks to the suburbs of American metropolitan areas, using the framework developed by Taeuber and Taeuber (1965) for the analysis of racial transition in inner city neighborhoods. The data are consistent with their model and suggest that the rate of black population growth is a function not only of the characteristies of individual suburbs themselves, but also of the central cities of the metropolitan areas within which they are located. The units of analysis are all suburbs with populations of 10,000 or more in 1960 and 1970. Suburban size is a key characteristic because the independent variables affect black population growth quite differently in different size categories. While there are clear differences between southern and nonsouthern suburbs in average levels of the push and pull variables, as well as the rate at which the black suburban population grew in the 1960s, the effects of these variables on black suburban growth were the same in both regions.

New Patterns of Population Change of Urban Areas in the United States during the 1970s

During the 1970s, new patterns of population change have appeared in the U.S., and previous patterns have acquired new complexities.The main purpose of this paper concentrates on identification and reaffirmation of the train of forces that bring about urban and rural spatial change, and the study starts from perception of several population changes through analyzing statistical data to find out the existence of a bunch of growth-inducing factors.At first, we can trace big migrations from the northeast and north central regions to the south and west. This regional shifts had already started before 1970, and became truly dramatic for the first half of the 1970s.Secondary, population increase of rural sector can be clearly seen. The gains increase partly due to the popular metropolitan overspill into adjacent counties but others are the result of the rural resurrection, a remarkable renascence of growth in the remoter nonadjacent counties due to specialized activities such as increasing accessibility of rural areas to the big metropolitan areas owing to advances in highway transportation, especially in development of “Interstate Highway System”, new industrial location trends emerged in the 1960s such as the decentralization of manufacturing, the revival or expansion of energy extraction, highly localized, large-scale energy related industrial development, recreation, and retirement.Thirdly, the slower growth of SMSAs as a whole can be noticed. However, growth rate depends upon the scale or the location of each SMSA, and slower growth is caused by the decline of central cities or slower growth of suburban areas.As for the slower growth of suburban areas where outstanding growth was seen during the 1950s and 1960s, we can recognize that three major reasons underlie that is to say, changing in the American life-style, rising of housing price, and increasing difficulties in using private cars.Finally, faster growth of black population is evident in the suburban areas of SMSAs. Black suburban population is still small in total number, compared with that of white one : however, faster growth of black population there will lead eventually to white abandonment of suburban community.Without doubt, such new trends as mentioned above, seen during the 1970s, are highly connected with the new patterns of population change of that period. Several sharp breakes with previous trends suggest that the forces underlying contemporary American population trends differ considerably from that operated during the 1960s. Through analyzing those new patterns as well as growth-inducing factors affecting population change of American urban and rural areas, it may be possible to point out that government role in developing new urban patterns is getting bigger.In the U.S., urban and rural community development has long been carried out by private hands. However, after “urban crisis” of the 1960s, federal government started to join in the private sector such as “urban development” or “development of new communities”. Government role in formation of new settlement patterns is still very small compared with that of private sector. However, we can recognize that new government participation in urban development will make it possible that government can lead urban development into favorable direction, not only in physical project but also in introducing social planning into this field.

Urban Structure and the Differentiation Between Blacks and Whites

In this study some of the determinants of black assimilation into large United States cities are examined. Assimilation is treated as a multidimensional phenomenon, the various dimensions of which are attributes of organized populations. A structural model is developed and analyzed, using the technique of path analysis, in which other attributes of urban social structures are related to the various dimensions of assimilation. Analysis suggests that the dimensions of assimilation are causally interrelated, with educational assimilation a major determinant of income assimilation, both directly and indirectly through its effects upon occupational assimilation. However, other attributes of organized urban populations also make important direct and indirect contributions to assimilation. Of special importance is percent of the city's population that is black and the rate of black population growth. Surprisingly, ghettoization is not very important causally when compared with other variables in the system, a significant negative finding in view of current emphasis upon this factor. This analysis suggests that greater attention be paid to organizational dimensions of urban populations as a means of specifying the processes underlying the assimilation of blacks.