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New technologies and multilevel data sets that include geographic identifiers have heightened sociologists' interest in spatial analysis. I review several of the key concepts, measures, and methods that are brought into play in this work and offer examples of their application in a variety of substantive fields. I argue that the most effective use of the new tools requires greater emphasis on spatial thinking. A device as simple as an illustrative map requires some understanding of how people respond to visual cues; models as complex as hierarchical linear modeling with spatial lags require thoughtful measurement decisions and raise questions about what a spatial effect represents.

Analyses of neighborhood racial composition in 1980-2000 demonstrate that in multiethnic metropolitan regions there is an emerging pathway of change that leads to relatively stable integration These are \"global neighborhoods\" where Hispanics and Asians are the pioneer integrators of previously all-white zones, later followed by blacks. However, region-wide segregation is maintained at high levels by whites' avoidance of all-minority areas and by their continued exodus (albeit at reduced levels) from mixed settings. Globalization of neighborhoods adds a positive new element of diversity that alters but does not erase the traditional dynamic of minority invasion succession.

Since the 1980s, several studies have reported a decline in all-White neighborhoods and a rising number of racially mixed neighborhoods, including what have been called multiethnic “global” neighborhoods. Previous research has shown that these changes between 1980 and 2010 partly reflected the rapidly rising shares of Hispanics and Asians in urban areas. However, they also showed that there had been a substantial change in the pattern of settlement, resulting in many transitions to greater diversity than could have been expected from this demographic shift. We update their analysis to 2020, comparing transitions in the 1980–2000 period to those in 2000–2020, to test whether the earlier observed trends have continued, intensified, or weakened. We also quantify the impact of residential changes on the numbers of persons in each racial/ethnic group who live in each type of neighborhood.

Since the 1980s, several studies have documented rising racial/ethnic diversity in neighborhoods in U.S. metropolitan areas, and others have reported a parallel decline in predominantly white neighborhoods and a rising number of multiethnic “global” neighborhoods. The authors examine three questions about these trends. First, do these trends represent a change in the pattern of segregation that has historically divided urban areas, or are they mainly a reflection of the overall changes in the urban population associated with the rapid growth in the number of Hispanic and Asian residents? Second, in what kinds of neighborhoods, classified by their racial/ethnic composition, is diversity rising? Third, how are trends in diversity associated with the various types of racial/ethnic transitions that have been reported in the literature on neighborhood change? The authors find that a large share of increases in diversity can be attributed to changes in overall metropolitan racial composition. As anticipated, however, diversity did typically increase in neighborhoods that developed a more inclusive composition, while those that lost their white presence became less diverse. On average, diversity was increasing in all types of neighborhoods irrespective of their initial racial composition, and similar changes were occurring in metropolitan areas with very different racial/ethnic composition.

Urban micro-segregation refers to segregation at the small scale, below the scale of the neighborhood [...]

Analysis of the residential patterns of the largest immigrant groups in New York and Los Angeles shows that most ethnic neighborhoods can be interpreted as immigrant enclaves. In some cases, however, living in ethnic neighborhoods is unrelated to economic constraints, indicating a positive preference for such areas.

It has been argued that the effects of the desegregation of public schools from the late 1960s onward were limited and short-lived, in part because of white flight from desegregating districts and in part because legal decisions in the 1990s released many districts from court orders. Data presented here for 1970-2000 show that small increases in segregation districts were outweighed by larger declines districts. Progress was interrupted but not reversed after 1990. Desegregation was not limited to districts and metropolitan regions where enforcement actions required it, and factors such as private schooling, district size, and inclusion of both city and suburban areas within district boundaries had stronger effects than individual court mandates.

Data from Census 2000 show that black-white segregation declined modestly at the national level after 1980, while Hispanic and Asian segregation rose in most metropolitan areas. Changes that may have produced greater changes for blacks proved to have insignificant effects: there was no net shift of the black population toward less-segregated areas, segregation at the metropolitan level did not decline more in areas where the incomes of blacks came closer to the incomes of whites over time, and the emergence of more multiethnic metropolises had no impact. As in the past, declines were centered in the South and West and in areas with smaller black populations. Increases in Hispanic and Asian segregation in individual metropolitan areas were counterbalanced by a net movement of these two groups toward areas of lower segregation. These increases were associated especially with the more rapid growth in the Hispanic and Asian populations. Hispanic segregation increased more in regions where group members had declining incomes relative to the incomes of whites and included a growing share of immigrants.

Urban development in China is strongly influenced by state policy in a context where even the emerging market actors are closely tied to government. The state role is reinforced by the absence of formal mechanisms for community participation in urban decision making and the limited citizenship rights of the large minority of urban residents who migrated from rural areas. Increasingly, however, scholars are becoming aware of the complexities of a political system that involves many vertical layers of governance, competition between localities and an ever-changing balance between centralisation and decentralisation. In addition, scholars are looking more closely at how urban residents adapt to the constraints and opportunities of a situation that is imposed on them, and how they develop strategies for their own advancement within it. In these ways, research on urban China offers a reconceptualisation of state-centred theories of urbanism and urbanisation in the global South. 在中国，即使是新崛起的市场行为主体也与政府密切关联。在这一背景下，中国的城市发展受到国家政策的强烈影响。社区参与城市决策的正式机制缺乏，加上从农村进城务工的大规模弱势群体的有限公民权利，强化了国家的作用。但是，越来越多的学者意识到，中国的政治体制涉及许多垂直治理层级、地方之间的竞争以及集权与分权之间不断变化的平衡，因而有着其复杂性。此外，学者们正在更密切地关注城市居民如何适应强加给他们的局势所带来的限制和机遇，以及他们如何为自身在这一局势中前行制定策略。在这些方面，对于以国家为中心的南半球城市发展和城市化理论，中国城市研究提供了一种新的理解。

Much of the literature on racial and ethnic educational inequality focuses on the contrast between black and Hispanic students in urban areas and white suburban students. This study extends the research on school segregation and racial/ethnic disparities by highlighting the importance of rural areas and regional variation. Although schools in rural America are disproportionately white, they nevertheless are like urban schools, and disadvantaged relative to suburban schools, in terms of poverty and test performance. Native Americans are most affected by rural school disadvantage. While they are a small share of students nationally, Native Americans are prominent and highly disadvantaged in rural areas, particularly in certain parts of the country. These figures suggest a strong case for including rural schools in the continuing conversations about how to deal with unfairness in public education.