Racial and Ethnic Diversity Goes Local: Charting Change in American Communities Over Three Decades

Increasing diversity has long been apparent at the national level and in our nation's largest metropolitan gateways. Since 1980 over nine-tenths of all cities, suburbs, and small towns have become more diverse. And rural communities are following the lead of their urban counterparts. Places where whites make up 90% or more of the population were two-thirds of the total three decades ago; now they are down to only one-third.