Why is Denver so segregated?? (Aurora, Lakewood: private school, to live, move to)

[zenkonami]

I still don't get it. The statistics may suggest otherwise, but I live in a neighborhood in South Denver that has a pretty good mix of different races / ethnicities...Arab, Black, Hispanic, Asian...however you want to categorize people. I'm also working in a lot of hotels now which may skew the numbers a bit, but there are plenty of people that I work with from all sorts of different backgrounds with all sorts of different shades of skin color.

In Los Angeles, I very rarely ran into anyone that wasn't White or possibly Asian in my line of work (and very often Jewish.) That's not to say it's not a very diverse city, but I've had more exposure to a wider variety of ethnicities here in just over 6 months than I did in 4 years in L.A. Maybe it's different out in the suburbs...I expect a "whiter" population in Parker or Centennial, but in Denver proper it really doesn't seem as segregated to me as so many people suggest.

[Katarina Witt]

I lived in NW Denver many years ago, and it was as diverse as it gets for Denver.

[andyk56]

You want to see some really segregated cities? Check out this link:
Check Out The Extreme Racial Segregation In America's Biggest Cities
Denver didn't even make the list

[mrgoodwx]

If you grew up in a neighborhood with a mixture of races, you might have shared some common cultural aspects of your life, regardless of race. But, I suspect many (not all) people who grew up in a segregated neighborhood may believe they have little in common with people of other races. Most people move to the culture they find comfortable to them, whatever it is.

Increasingly, that "culture" may have as much or more to do with non-racial aspects as anything else. In his book, The Big Sort, Bill Bishop makes a strong case for increasing segregation on many fronts, including race, religion, politics, and socioeconomic status. For example, the number of counties that vote either republican or democrat by more than 60 percent has increased dramatically in the past 30-40 years.

On my street in Albuquerque, we have Anglos, Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans. Yet, no one seems to ever mingle with anyone else. These people live peacefully among one another, but their connections with other people are outside of the neighborhood, be it through their childrens' activities, their churches, whatever...

[WhsAdrian]

http://pics.city-data.com/craces2/3152.jpg
White alone - 304,028 (50.8%)
Hispanic - 205,288 (34.3%)
Black alone - 54,659 (9.1%)
Asian alone - 19,142 (3.2%)
Two or more races - 9,160 (1.5%)
American alone - 4,496 (0.8%)
Other race alone - 1,221 (0.2%)
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone - 713 (0.1%)

(info found at [url]http://www.city-data.com/city/Denver-Colorado.htm[/url])

[SonySegaTendo617]

Originally Posted by andyk56

You want to see some really segregated cities? Check out this link:
Check Out The Extreme Racial Segregation In America's Biggest Cities
Denver didn't even make the list

I really enjoyed looking at this. Thanks for posting the link, it is indeed very sad how many cities are still segregated, including not surprisingly Chicago. I was really hoping 2 cities I've been investigating moving to within the next 5 years, Indianapolis and Atlanta, would've been covered! Ah well, but IIRC, Atlanta has less segregation than Chicago, and Indy's segregation is more on the level of Chicago's.....

I personally could care less if all my neighbors were white, or if it was a mix of white and non-white, as long as they were trustworthy neighbors!

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Allan617

I really enjoyed looking at this. Thanks for posting the link, it is indeed very sad how many cities are still segregated, including not surprisingly Chicago. I was really hoping 2 cities I've been investigating moving to within the next 5 years, Indianapolis and Atlanta, would've been covered! Ah well, but IIRC, Atlanta has less segregation than Chicago, and Indy's segregation is more on the level of Chicago's.....

I personally could care less if all my neighbors were white, or if it was a mix of white and non-white, as long as they were trustworthy neighbors!

On one of the forums (perhaps General US?), someone did post a link that included, I believe, around 100 cities from that series. It definitely showed Atlanta and Indianapolis. Sorry I can't be more specific, but take a look around. According to that link, Denver isn't *too* bad.

[bullfish15]

Does it really matter? Who cares if Black people tend to live in "black neighborhoods" and whites stay in "white neighborhoods". Anyone can live anywhere. There are no laws that say "blacks can not move to Broomfield" or "No whites in Montbello" for example. People do have the right to choose where they live and if they feel comfortable staying by people like themselves, why is it a problem to you?

[FlowerpotFlowers]

Originally Posted by bullfish15

Does it really matter? Who cares if Black people tend to live in "black neighborhoods" and whites stay in "white neighborhoods". Anyone can live anywhere. There are no laws that say "blacks can not move to Broomfield" or "No whites in Montbello" for example. People do have the right to choose where they live and if they feel comfortable staying by people like themselves, why is it a problem to you?

What is the poster looking for? I see a lot of questions like this. Maybe he wants to socialize more with people of other races...but what does that have to do with people living near people who are more like their families/cultures that they are familiar with? It is like he is really asking 'Why do people stick to their own kind'? Familiarity and maybe they like it!

[dude_reino]

Originally Posted by cityboy2010

And the gentrification of Five Points didn't help in my opinion...it just created an income disparity in the neighborhood between the same old poverty, but now, ALAS, their neighbors are yuppies who know nothing about the area or have respect for it.

Ahem...I'm one of those "yuppies", and I can tell you that we have a lot more respect for the neighborhood than most of the lowlife "natives" who are out in the street all hours of the night and leave malt liquor bottles all over our yards.