Thread by @danvock

It's been a week since we released "Segregated in the Heartland," our project on black-white residential segregation in smaller Illinois metro areas. My thanks to @JBrianCharles and @mikemaciag who made up our reporting team on the project governing.com/topics/public-… 1/

I'd like to share a few thoughts about the series, but first, if you missed them, make sure you read, print or bookmark all four stories
-- Overview governing.com/topics/public-…
-- Schools governing.com/topics/educati…
-- Housing governing.com/topics/health-…
-- Crime governing.com/topics/public-… 2/

The series explores the extent of segregation in Illinois and nationally, with plenty of data to compare. But it also tries to get into the ROLES that local governments (our forte) play in maintaining that segregation. 3/

We are not the only ones to calculate segregation rankings. I would note that our rankings are up-to-date and more comprehensive than many other lists (we include small metros, for example) governing.com/gov-data/resid… 4/

We also calculated how segregated schools are in metro areas. Notice, I didn't say we calculated how segregated school DISTRICTS are. (Although we did that too). Metro areas seemed more apt, because white flight / segregation happens across metro areas governing.com/gov-data/schoo… 5/

That got a lot of attention, because, as it turns out, the Peoria metro area has the most segregated schools in the country pjstar.com/news/20190124/… 6/

But the data is only the beginning of the story. While rankings are illustrative, it's easy to make mountains of molehills with the numbers. The point is that the SAME RESULTS are happening across these areas. The question is: Why? 7/

Some of the best advice we got on how to write this series came from Richard Rothstein, from @EconomicPolicy and author of "The Color of Law," which is an absolute must-read on how government created segregation amazon.com/Color-Law-Forg… 8/

"I travel around the whole country," Rothstein said. "There's not a place I go that people don’t say their area isn’t worse than the rest of the country. It’s not just Midwest. It's Richmond, Oregon, New York and Birmingham." 9/

"Every place is different and unique, but every one is the same. Both are the true at the same time," Rothstein added. "We are lured into studying the differences instead of commonalities, [but] the commonalities are more significant than the differences." 10/

That, my friends, is the point of the series. I bet the things happening in Springfield, Peoria or Rockford are happening in your hometown too. Or if they're not, something else is causing the same result. Again, why? 11/

If nobody questions it, nothing changes. Segregation continues, even as people move. So it's time for people to take a look around their communities, figure out what is keeping blacks and whites apart in unequal conditions, and push for those things to change. 12/end