South Hampton Roads' urban core remains segregated

NORFOLK

Kimberly Chambliss' family moved to the Nansemond area of Suffolk 2½ years ago, drawn by lower housing prices and new subdivisions.

The area within a mile of the Chamblisses’ large two-story brick house is roughly half-white and half-minority. Chambliss, who is black, said she was surprised by the variety of backgrounds and economic levels when she moved from Virginia Beach.

“I wasn’t prepared for this,” she said. “I’m from Atlanta, where the wealthy live on one side of the city. It’s all mixed here.”

Neighborhoods such as Chambliss’ – newer suburban developments in northern and eastern Suffolk, southwestern Virginia Beach and the Greenbrier section of Chesapeake – boast high integration rates, which helped Hampton Roads become one of the most racially mixed regions in the nation.

But that’s not the entire picture.

In the past decade, South Hampton Roads has become no more integrated overall. That’s mostly because long-established neighborhoods in the region’s urban core remain heavily segregated, according to an analysis of 2010 census data.

Census data released last month show that one-sixth of the region’s black residents live in hypersegregated areas, where more than 90 percent of the population is black.

That kind of racial isolation can lead to inequities in housing, schools, social services and quality of life, experts say.

“It’s not only harmful to blacks, but it’s harmful to whites – the community as a whole,” said Rodney Jordan, a civic leader who lives in Norfolk’s Park Place, which is 89 percent black.

Jordan has championed efforts to integrate neighborhoods, but few others have raised the issue locally. Regional planning and development organizations, city governments and local universities haven’t addressed the area’s hypersegregation.

“I don’t think you have a strong, multiracial, economically diverse core group of citizens who are fighting to try to see integration retained or grown,” Jordan said.

In the past decade, Hampton Roads’ standing as one of the nation’s most integrated areas has slipped, surpassed by regions such as Raleigh-Chapel Hill, N.C., and Charleston, S.C., where integration has continued to increase.

That’s because Hampton Roads’ numbers aren’t changing.

After a huge decrease in segregation from 1980 to 1990, and a smaller change from 1990 to 2000, the past decade shows the situation virtually unchanged.

That mirrors national trends documented in the past year by demographers and sociologists . A December study by the US 2010 project, based at Brown University in Providence, R.I., declared “progress at a standstill.” Figures from the 2010 census show that South Hampton Roads ’ most segregated neighborhoods have remained persistently separate the past 10 years, hurting the region’s overall integration rate.

“To the extent that the country’s becoming more integrated, it tends not to happen in the already historically formed minority neighborhoods,” said John Logan, a sociology professor at Brown and director of the US 2010 project. “If it’s had an identity for 30 or 40 years, then it’s very hard to change,” he said. “It turns out that white home buyers are very reluctant to move into primarily minority neighborhoods. ”

Overall, Portsmouth had the highest rate of dissimilarity – the standard measurement of segregation – among South Hampton Roads’ five cities. Nearly 55 percent of the city’s black residents would have to move into a different census tract for them to be equally distributed across the city.

Parts of downtown Suffolk, Chesapeake’s South Norfolk area, the Brambleton section of Norfolk and Prentis Park in Portsmouth showed almost no racial mix among residents, with occupancy by just one race as high as 98 percent in some areas.

Logan said studies and data have shown that segregation and racial isolation hurt minority populations, even in the middle and upper-middle classes.

“In most metropolitan areas, separate turns out to be unequal,” he said. “Even when they have higher income levels, minorities tend to live in neighborhoods that have fewer resources than comparable white neighborhoods.”

Children from segregated neighborhoods attend poorer-performing schools, studies have shown. Residents also have less access to health care, and there are fewer shopping and economic developments nearby .

In South Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach had the lowest segregation rate. Only 35 percent of the city’s black residents would have to move for the city to become fully integrated. The rate is slightly higher for Asian residents, many of whom have clustered in specific areas . Many of Virginia Beach’s northernmost and southernmost neighborhoods also are its whitest, with areas around Pungo and Wolfsnare Road more than 90 percent white.

Because those areas tend to be less densely populated, fewer people are affected by the hypersegregation.

Large parts of Virginia Beach, such as the neighborhoods around Kempsville, have a very even racial mix. So do newer neighborhoods in Suffolk’s Sleepy Hole and Nansemond districts.

Jordan said more neighborhoods should strive for that. He said a recent community push to continue busing children from across Norfolk to Ghent School – where the student population is economically and racially diverse – was a positive sign that integration had become important to residents.

“That restored my faith,” he said. “In Norfolk, we have not rewarded people for wanting to have a racially integrated experience. We’ve rewarded people for doing exactly the opposite.

“Keeping the buses rewards parents and citizens who choose to have their children attend a school that’s racially and economically integrated.”

Meghan Hoyer, (757) 446-2293, meghan.hoyer@pilotonline.com