Racial Blind Spots: Black-White-Latino Differences in Community Knowledge

This article explores racial/ethnic differences in community knowledge as a contributing mechanism through which residential segregation in U.S. cities is perpetuated. If whites, blacks, and Latinos are familiar with different communities, and that familiarity is influenced by community racial/ethnic composition, then these "blind spots" may constitute one barrier to integrative mobility. We address three questions: (1) Do blacks, whites, and Latinos have different community blind spots?; (2) Do blacks, whites, and Latinos of the same social, economic, and geographic backgrounds still have different blind spots?; and (3) Do the racial/ethnic characteristics of the community predict a racial/ethnic difference in blind spots, net of the respondent's and the community's other characteristics? Employing logistic regression and hierarchical linear models with data from the 2004–2005 Chicago Area Study, we explore how whites, blacks, and Latinos differ in their knowledge of actual communities in the Chicago metropolitan area and whether differences persist after controlling for social class characteristics. Results show strong evidence that community knowledge is shaped by race—both of the resident and of the target community. Policy implications of the results are discussed.