When we talk about segregation in New York City, specific places often come to mind: stark contrasts between the predominately black and latino neighborhoods of the south Bronx or the mostly white, upper income areas of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. But as RPA Associate Planner Sarah Serpas explains in a City Limits article, segregation in the city may be better understood by looking at the region as a whole.

“The full impact of segregation in America can only be understood by looking at metropolitan regions, the places where white flight to the suburbs exacerbated neighborhood segregation in the nation’s cities and excluded the poor and people of color from housing opportunities in these new communities.”

Serpas outlines local and national discriminatory practices that led to segregated neighborhoods in and around large cities, and how, despite urban revival taking place in many urban cores across the country, the legacy of this discrimination is reinforced with current policy.

“While no longer explicitly racially discriminatory, many current planning policies continue to enforce the segregation patterns set in previous decades. Zoning ordinances prohibiting multifamily housing construction, or otherwise limiting the ability to build affordable housing, prevent lower- and middle-income residents from living in communities that offer the most opportunity to live healthy, full lives.”

The article also shares an interactive map of the economic and racial differences between communities in the New York metropolitan area today, categorizing each census tract by the percent of white residents and the percent of the population living in poverty.

The article was the second in the City Limits Building Justice series, a collaboration with Enterprise Community Partners exploring the intersection of race and housing policy.

Read more about the regional scale and impact of segregation, and the potential policies planners and government agencies can use to address these divides, in City Limits.