American Apartheid: The 10 most segregated urban areas in America

From [HERE] Decades after the end of Jim Crow, and three years after the election of America's first black president, the United States remains a profoundly segregated country.

Racially segregated housing patterns in the United States exist to a large degree as a result of intentional discrimination against minorities.[MORE] Opponents argue that patterns of housing segregation exist because of personal choice and economic disparity, yet income differences alone account for only 10% to 35% of the racial segregation actually observed.[MORE]

Moreover, the myth that African Americans want to live amongst other African Americans is unfounded. In a sociological study of the underlying attitudes of whites and blacks toward integrated housing, for example, blacks overwhelmingly chose to live in integrated neighborhoods.[MORE] On the other hand surveys indicate that large  percentage of whites would feel uncomfortable living in communities populated by equal numbers of blacks and whites.[MORE] and [MORE] 

That reality has been reinforced by the release of Census Bureau data last week that shows black and white Americans still tend to live in their own neighborhoods, often far apart from each other.

The following is a list of the nation's most segregated metropolitan areas of over 500,000 people. The rankings are based on a dissimilarity index, a measure used by social scientists to gauge residential segregation. It reflects the number of people from one race -- in this case black or white -- who would have to move for races to be evenly distributed across a certain area. A score of 1 indicates perfect integration while 100 signals complete segregation. The rankings were compiled by John Paul DeWitt of CensusScope.org and the University of Michigan's Social Science Data Analysis Network.

10. Los Angeles 

9. Philadelphia. 

8. Cincinnati 

7. St. Louis. 

6. Buffalo

5. Cleveland

4. Detroit

3. Chicago

2. New York

1. Milwaukee [MORE]