Global Neighborhoods: New Pathways to Diversity and Separation offered interesting insight on how whites and minorities interact in different neighborhoods, and the sudden disappearance of formerly all white tracts in global cities. This study uncovers an odd phenomenon about how whites and minorities, particularly black people, interact with each other. Research has shown that white people are more likely to leave a neighborhood when black people enter into it, but less likely to do the same when Asians or Hispanics move into their neighborhood. In addition to that, the study also shows another phenomenon called the “buffering hypothesis.” White people are less likely to leave a neighborhood when black people enter a neighborhood if there exists a presence of another minority, Hispanic and Asian people. Also the study notes that only five previously all white tracts made a change from a predominantly white to white-black. In contrast, the number of Hispanic or Asian entry into a previously predominant white society without the entry of blacks was larger than 400.

This study was an eye opener for me, I never once thought about how whites react to minorities moving into their previously all white neighborhoods. The number of all white neighborhoods has taken a big dip from 1980 to 2000 alone. A study done by Freidman notes that predominantly white neighborhoods dropped from a large 54% to just 28%. The future patterns of how white people will choose to live in the future are a mystery, but I believe it will, or may, eventually change. In metropolitan areas, the diversity of neighborhoods has changed how scholars view each area. There are a lot more neighborhoods now that go beyond the white-black tracts and the more common sight is one filled with whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. The concept of buffering of white and black tracts by Asian and Hispanic minorities cannot really be proven to be true, but it’s a concept that should be accepted based on the trends that we see in every in metropolitan areas.