Twin Cities Ranked Among Nation's Worst Cities For Black Residents
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A new study ranks Minneapolis-St. Paul among the worst cities in the country for black residents to live in.
The study, published by 24/7 Wall St., argues this determination is based on the level of socioeconomic segregation that exists between a city's black population versus its white populace. (The study did exclude cities where black residents made up less than 5 percent of the population.)
The Twin Cities came out the fourth-worst, according to these determinations.
24/7 Wall St. pointed out that the median income for black households in Minneapolis-St. Paul is $31,653. That's just 41.5 percent of what white households in the area earn.
Less than one-quarter of black Twin Cities residents own their homes, compared to the three-quarters of white residents. And unemployment among black residents is above 12 percent; white unemployment is under 4 percent.
"The Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro area is one of several Midwestern cities that enacted restrictive housing covenants and exclusionary zoning policies in the 20th century," the study reads. "These policies still impact residential patterns today. The city is highly segregated by race and has some of the largest disparities in poverty, income, and homeownership between black and white residents of any U.S. metro area."
The poverty rate for black people in Minneapolis-St. Paul is 32 percent, which is above even the national average of 26 percent.
The only cities that ranked worse than the Twin Cities were Racine, Wisconsin; Milwaukee; and Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa.