The dissimilarity index measures the relative separation or integration of groups across all neighborhoods of a city or metropolitan area. If a city's white-black dissimilarity index were 65, that would mean that 65% of white people would need to move to another neighborhood to make whites and blacks evenly distributed across all neighborhoods.
| Dissimilarity Indices | ||||
| Dissimilarity Index | Percent of | |||
| With Whites* | Population** | Total Population | ||
| White* | -- | 323,136 | 74.09% | |
| Black* | 81.2 | 88,356 | 20.26% | |
| American Indian* | 36.3 | 2,171 | 0.50% | |
| Asian* | 50.0 | 3,487 | 0.80% | |
| Native Hawaiian* | 89.1 | 80 | 0.02% | |
| Other* | 67.8 | 541 | 0.12% | |
| Two or More Races* | 38.6 | 8,218 | 1.88% | |
| White/Black* | 56.0 | 2,125 | 0.49% | |
| White/American Indian* | 35.4 | 2,695 | 0.62% | |
| White/Asian* | 48.9 | 703 | 0.16% | |
| White/Other* | 54.5 | 752 | 0.17% | |
| Other Combinations* | -- | 1,943 | 0.45% | |
| Hispanic | 32.0 | 10,152 | 2.33% | |
| Total Population | -- | 436,141 | 100.00% | |
* Non-Hispanic only.
* When a group's population is small, its dissimilarity index may be high even if the group's members are evenly distributed throughout the area. Thus, when a group's population is less than 1,000, exercise caution in interpreting its dissimilarity indices.
Source: William H. Frey and Dowell Myers' analysis of Census 2000; and the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN).
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