A working paper by the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston looks at racial trends since the 1990s in the Boston Metropolitan area. It posits that Boston is at a crossroads, from which either growing isolation of people from different races and ethnicities or greater integration and diversity across the metropolitan region is possible. Specific findings include the following:

• Non-white and Latino populations in Greater Boston grew during the 1990s, while the white population fell by almost 2%.
• The 2000 census shows that 80% of Greater Boston residents were white, compared to 66% of residents in all U.S. metropolitan areas.
• About 34% of Latinos lived in the region’s satellite cities in 2000, compared to 15% of the region’s residents on the whole.
• Population growth over the decade 1990-2000 in the Boston region was solely due to growth in the non-white and Latino populations: 31% of population growth was by Asians and Latinos and 20% was by blacks.

Download the full report.
"Boston at the Crossroads." December 14, 2004.

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