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Table of Contents | Background
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Spatially Integrated Social Science: Chapter 6
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Identifying
Ethnic Neighborhoods with Census Data: Group Concentration
and Spatial Clustering
John R. Logan and
Wenquan Zhang
Abstract
Minorities and immigrants have always established
distinctive settlement areas in American cities. These "ethnic
neighborhoods" are most often identified and studied
through fieldwork, where the researcher typically begins with
the knowledge that a given locale is socially recognized as
being the place of residence of a particular ethnic group.
But to answer some kinds of questions (such as: How are ethnic
neighborhoods different from other locales? What distinguishes
their residents from group members who live elsewhere?) requires
systematic methods of identifying neighborhoods and defining
their boundaries. This chapter shows how two indicators of
a group's residential pattern can be combined for this
purpose. One, widely used in thematic maps, is the concentration
of group members at the level of census tracts. Another is
the spatial clustering of the concentrations. The method is
illustrated for Chinese and Filipinos in the Los Angeles metropolitan
region in 1990. It is shown that the location and character
of ethnic neighborhoods varies widely within the region, from
"immigrant enclaves" that primarily serve the
needs of disadvantaged newcomers to "ethnic communities"
serving the more affluent and better-established members of
ethnic groups.
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