The urban South has been significantly transformed over the last few decades by a rapid increase in racial and ethnic diversity. This research investigates the impacts that increased diversity has had on the levels of residential segregation among racial and/or ethnic groups across the urban core of Atlanta, Georgia from 1990 to 2010. Empirical analysis entailed the measurement of two dimensions of segregation evident among Non-Hispanic whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. Measures of residential segregation were decomposed in order to investigate the relative impacts of region-wide compositional change and intra-urban redistributive change on segregation among the four groups. During the two decades, Atlanta exhibited very modest forms of integration, yet in certain contexts the region actually became more segregated residentially. Results suggest that Non-Hispanic whites, Asians, and Hispanics exhibited some degree of "ethnic ( or racial) self-selectivity" that functioned to concentrate these groups residentially, although these forces were partially offset by other forces operating at both the neighborhood and metropolitan scales. The evidence further suggests that the residential experiences among minorities were strongly impacted by the redistributive behavior of whites. Findings lead to the conclusion that Atlanta remains a highly segregated, albeit increasingly diverse, urban region.
