One of the assertions often made about Chicago is that it’s the nation’s most segregated city. I admit I’ve been guilty of invoking this cliché in the past. For that reason I’m intrigued by this set of interactive maps tracing the lack of integration even after the The Fair Housing Act of 1968:
http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/city-maps
Between 1910 and 1960, the Great Migration saw 6 million African Americans move from the rural South to the industrial North. Through public policy and private action, the black migrants were largely segregated into neighborhoods that were almost exclusively black. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 required the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to take “affirmative” steps to end housing discrimination and promote integration. But 45 years of the federal housing discrimination ban has failed to break up that segregation.
These maps are part of an important investigation from Propublica called “Living Apart: Fair Housing in America”