Metro Boston Equity Initiative

We are committed to generating and synthesizing research on key civil rights and equal opportunity policies that have been neglected or overlooked.

More than Money: The Spatial Mismatch Between Where Homeowners of Color in Metro Boston Can Afford to Live and Where They Actually Reside

Few people argue that segregation is purely a result of market forces, or that it is due entirely to discrimination. Most recognize that the answer must lie somewhere in between. Policy efforts must focus on removing any remnants of discriminatory practices, and must also find ways to attract and retain populations of color in communities that are affordable to but devoid of households of color.

Beyond Poverty: Race and Concentrated-Poverty Neighborhoods in Metro Boston

Metropolitan Boston needs a serious discussion about racial equity. The region is in the midst of a period of rapid racial change but there is a widespread perception that either nothing needs to be done explicitly about race, or nothing can be done because of failures in the city of Boston in the past. Many people think that issues of discrimination have been solved and that everyone now has an equal chance.

Segregation in Neighborhoods and Schools: Impacts on Minority Children in the Boston Region

Nearly 30 years after a court ordered Boston’s city schools to desegregate (1974), school segregation continues to be a major obstacle to equal opportunity for minority children in the Boston metropolis. The issues are national in scope, but in Boston we see especially clearly how limited are the impacts of policies that are only implemented within city boundaries. Blacks and Hispanics are unusually concentrated in the City of Boston and a handful of older outlying towns and cities, while residential suburbs where most whites live hardly share in the growing ethnic and racial diversity of the region.

Segregation in the Boston Metropolitan Area at the End of the 20th Century

The report is based on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data and census data. The HMDA data provide information about the race, ethnicity, income, and census tract location of nearly all home purchases involving a mortgage loan across the nation. The report covers the Boston Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA). The data are drawn from the years 1993 through 1998.