Is Shreveport on the List of Most Segregated Cities?

A new report is out about racism in the United States. Two Louisiana cities are on the list as the most segregated cities in the country. Detroit is at the top of this list.

I scoured the list to see if Shreveport made it and we are not on the list. That might be because this list only includes the top 100 cities in the country.

New Orleans and Baton Rouge make the list. 24/7 Wall Street puts New Orleans at number six on the list, and Baton Rouge is at number 13. Editor-In-Chief Doug McIntyre tells the Louisiana Radio Network that’s because of population concentration in the cities. “You have sections of the city that are very heavily white and very heavily black,” McIntyre said.

He adds: “Black families tend to be more impoverished. They tend to have lower income. They tend to have lower education and worse health outcomes,” McIntyre said.

The report says in New Orleans, about 43 percent of the black population lives in black neighborhoods, compared to 32 percent in Baton Rouge. McIntyre says the fact that those groups of people are isolated from groups that have better outcomes means that segregation helps to keep those kinds of outcomes in place.

“A city that is highly segregated makes it harder for people in the minority to have their situations improve over time,” McIntyre said.

HERE'S THE FULL LIST OF MOST SEGREGATED CITIES