Study: LI still mostly segregated

Faces on Long Island reflect a growing diversity, but most neighborhoods remain stubbornly segregated for blacks and whites, a recent study found.

The Island ranks as the seventh most segregated major metropolitan area in the country, according to the analysis, which found black/white integration has changed little since 2000.

The finding troubles experts and public officials.

"You can hardly measure the change," said one of the researchers, John R. Logan of Brown University.

Logan, a former Stony Brook University professor, teamed with Brian Stults of Florida State University in analyzing data from the 50 metro regions in the United States with the largest black populations. New York City's black and white populations were the least mixed, the study found, but integration was nearly as lacking in the suburbs of Long Island.

"Long Island is locked into a pattern that has not changed in the slightest," said Logan, adding that he anticipates the findings to be confirmed by 2010 census data due out soon.

"That's the real issue of segregation from my perspective," he said.

Segregated housing patterns crystallized on the Island after World War II, promoted by restrictive covenants that prevented blacks from living in certain communities, most notably Levittown.

Some local experts weren't surprised by Logan's research and agreed with many of his concerns. "There's less mobility in the black communities to move to where there are better schools and less poverty," said Martin Cantor, director of Dowling College's Long Island Economic & Social Policy Institute.

"As long as you have segregated housing patterns and very small school districts, you can't break this cycle," said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of Hofstra University's National Center for Suburban Studies.

Seth Forman, chief planner for the Long Island Regional Planning Council, criticized Logan's conclusions. The study, he said, "mistakenly uses integration as a screen for progress. Why? Is he implying people who live in more highly integrated neighborhoods are happier or somehow better off? If he is, he offers no evidence that this is so."

Some residents of predominantly minority neighborhoods complain that segregation comes with a price - a lack of resources. But for others, there's comfort in living with people like themselves.

Rener Reed moved to Lakeview in the early 1960s and today calls it "a community one can take pride in."

Fifty years ago, the hamlet was almost evenly divided between blacks and whites. But as the Reeds and other blacks arrived - seeking a nice home in the suburbs for a growing family - whites took flight.

It didn't bother Rener Reed much. "The bottom line was I was happy to have a house," she said.

Lakeview, an unincorporated community of about 5,000 people, has since evolved into a haven for middle-class blacks. It was one of Long Island's most segregated communities in 2000 - at nearly 85 percent black.

Today, that percentage has dipped to 77 percent, thanks to an influx of Hispanics, according to the latest census estimates.

Echoing Logan's findings, demographer William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said many Northeast and Midwest cities still have heavily segregated black-white populations. But the overall trend is positive.

"We are now at the lowest [level] of black-white segregation in the country than we've probably had historically since the end of World War II," he said.

'Separate and unequal'

The study, released in December, measured segregation using a "dissimilarity index" on a scale of 0 to 100 - with the least-integrated areas assigned the highest numbers, a common method to assess racial segregation.

The study scored overall segregation between blacks and whites on the Island at 74.1 on the index using census tract estimates from the 2005-2009 Census Bureau American Community Survey. In 2000, the score was virtually the same for Long Island - 74.4. Even a generation ago, the picture wasn't much different, Logan said, saying the Island's black-white segregation score was 77.6 in 1980.

The report also charted segregation between whites and Hispanics, and whites and Asians, finding those minority groups are less segregated than blacks.

Black families on Long Island earning more than $60,000 a year lived in neighborhoods where one out of 10 residents were impoverished, Logan said, citing 2000 census data. But whites with incomes of less than $30,000 lived where the poverty rate was significantly lower.

"That's the 'unequal' part of 'separate and unequal,' " Logan said. "This is what people who are thinking about segregation should face up to."

Reginal Lucas faces that every day in Hempstead Village. He remembers when the community was an economic hub, complete with major department stores, such as Abraham & Straus and Alexander's.

That was 34 years ago. The department stores are gone, but that's not the biggest change. The village has undergone a dramatic racial shift: from predominantly white to predominantly black and Hispanic.

Hempstead Village, home to roughly 56,000 people, has become more than 92 percent African American and Hispanic.

Today, Lucas, 68, who heads an umbrella organization for local civic groups, worries about the downside of losing so many higher-income families: eroding quality at local schools; concerns over drive-by shootings and other crimes; a nagging litter problem.

"It's getting tougher," he said. "We're still striving for better."

Racial 'steering' complaints

A combination of factors are cited to explain segregation on Long Island. Many experts cite steering of minorities to predominantly nonwhite housing areas and socio-economic factors that limit some African Americans' ability to move into more affluent areas.

Elaine Gross, president of ERASE Racism, a Syosset-based advocacy group, called for "aggressive" steps to remove barriers to integration. Local government policies that give existing residents preference on affordable housing perpetuates segregated housing patterns, she said.

Nassau and Suffolk county officials say they're addressing the problem partly through fair housing laws. Nassau reported 22 housing discrimination complaints last year, three based on race; Suffolk reported 20 cases, two based on race.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said the number of complaints is "disturbingly low" and more needs to be done to encourage people to come forward. "Study after study has shown that a person seeking an apartment or house are far less likely to get called back if they have an accent or an ethnic-sounding name," he said.There are also lingering complaints about racial "steering" by real estate agents.

The Long Island Board of Realtors said it's committed to raising awareness, offering its 19,000 members courses and conferences on fair housing laws.

Levy said Suffolk, at the board's urging, passed a law requiring co-op boards to specify why they reject applicants. The board is seeking a similar bill in Nassau.