Where segregation has changed in DC — and where it hasn’t

Segregation has a long and painful history in the Washington region that has shaped the way it looks today.

Far from happening by accident, public policies pushed away and kept out Black people and other marginalized communities from white neighborhoods, keeping them legally segregated for decades while channeling resources and opportunities to white communities.

Those patterns of racial isolation and disparity exist to this day — and according to a report released in June by the Othering and Belonging Institute, 81% of metropolitan areas in the US are actually more segregated than they were in 1990.

Among those increasingly segregated metropolitan regions is our own. And the District itself is still highly segregated too: the report ranks DC as the 22nd most segregated large city in the country.

Although overall segregation in DC and the region hasn’t budged, the racial and ethnic makeup of many individual neighborhoods has changed over time. Some historically white neighborhoods have slowly become more diverse; and many neighborhoods that were once almost solely Black have seen an influx of people of other heritages — often white, but not always.

The report authors argue that residential segregation is fundamental to the vast disparities in outcomes that Black Americans face.

“It is residential segregation, by sorting people into particular neighborhoods or communities on the basis of race, that connects (or fails to connect) residents to good schools, nutritious foods, healthy environments, good paying jobs, and access to health care, clinics, critical amenities and services,” the report says.

In DC in particular, the conversation about integration is shadowed by another about gentrification as what was once known as “Chocolate City” becomes wealthier and whiter.

What looks to some like integration looks a lot like displacement in long-established Black neighborhoods like Shaw that have seen an influx of white residents and, alongside them, skyrocketing housing prices. And while gentrification doesn’t always lead to displacement, the District has seen some of the highest rates of low-income displacement in the country, according to a 2019 study by the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity.

The Othering and Belonging Institute acknowledges that tensions like these can lead anti-racism advocates to feel discomfort about making integration a goal. But the authors argue that dismantling segregation is key to closing racial gaps.

“it is unlikely that we can ever close out racial disparities let alone significantly improve life outcomes for racially marginalized people in a racially segregated society,” the report says.

An area where predominantly white segregation has fallen

The area west of Rock Creek Park is one of DC’s most notoriously exclusive enclaves. In the early 20th century, segregationist practices pushed out Black communities and established neighborhoods restricted to white residents. In 2010, when Black residents made up half of DC’s overall population, only 5% of Ward 3 residents were Black according to Census data.

To this day, Rock Creek West remains exclusive, wealthy, and predominantly white. But it’s less so than it was in 2010. According to the Othering and Belonging Institute map, a number of census tracts in upper Northwest that were previously centers of white segregation now show low-medium segregation.

(A note here: the researchers don’t see “segregation” and “integration” as opposite concepts, noting in their technical appendix that some places may not be segregated, but aren’t integrated either because they “have little underlying diversity to facilitate segregation.” These places are categorized as “low-medium segregation,” colored gray on the maps.)

White people still predominate in those Census tracts, but in the past decade they’ve been joined by growing numbers of people of other races. Much of the growth appears to come from Latinx populations. In one Chevy Chase census tract for instance, the share of Latinx residents more than doubled, going from 7% of the population to 16%.

Black residents have become a greater share of the population in some tracts as well: An area around Forest Hills, for example, went from 9% to 15% Black between 2010 and 2019.

Despite this change, not much of upper Northwest is meaningfully integrated, according to the report’s categorization. And many areas west of Rock Creek Park are still firmly in the “high white segregation” camp, including Friendship Heights and Georgetown.

DC officials have been trying to accelerate change in this part of DC by incorporating racial equity into planning processes and setting affordable housing goals — but so far, progress is slow.

An area where predominantly Black segregation has fallen

Some of the most profound changes to DC’s segregation patterns have happened over the last 20 years in north-central DC, from Shaw and Logan Circle to Petworth.

Racially integrated Census tracts in the District are almost non-existent in the year 2000 on the Othering and Belonging Institute’s segregation map — other than Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, the only integrated tract within DC’s borders in 2000 was a small slice near Logan Circle.

Today, the blue color that indicates racial integration on the report’s interactive map can be found along that north-central corridor, in tracts in Logan Circle, Bloomingdale, Shaw, Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, and Crestwood.

Tracts in Petworth, Park View, which were once more than 80% Black, are no longer considered segregated in this report, largely due to an influx of white and Latinx residents. Eckington, too, saw white residents move into an area that in 2000 barely had any at all.

Where segregation hasn’t budged

Locals will probably not be surprised to learn that the map of segregation east of the Anacostia River looks the same in 2019 as it did one, two, and even four decades ago. Other than the military base, residents of every census tract in this area are overwhelmingly Black.

Within that broad categorization, however, some neighborhoods have seen change. The census tract that includes Fort Dupont Park, for instance, was 93% Black in 2010. Today that number has shrunk to 79% as white and Asian residents have moved in. More white residents have moved into tracts around the Anacostia neighborhood as well in the last decade. And a handful of other tracts have seen significant growth of Latinx populations.

Segregation has been a defining feature of the neighborhoods east of the Anacostia since the mid 20th century, historians Chris Myers Asch and Derek Musgrove wrote for WAMU in 2018. The mostly rural area, with a large white middle and working class population, drew thousands of Black residents displaced by urban renewal projects in Southwest and other areas of DC; and when some employers closed shop, the white residents who had worked there moved to the suburbs.

After years of disinvestment, people living east of the river on average face worse education, economic, and health outcomes as compared to whiter and less segregated parts of DC.