Creekridge Park is a multi-ethnic, mixed-income urban neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina. In order to better understand what living in a multi-ethnic neighborhood means to residents and what kind of interracial relationships they have, this book's author participated in neighborhood events, conducted intensive interviews, and surveyed the pseudonymous neighborhood's black, white, and Latino households. While the evidence that residential segregation helps maintain racial inequality is well-established, the book demonstrates that the relationship between spatial proximity (how closely diffe ... More

Creekridge Park is a multi-ethnic, mixed-income urban neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina. In order to better understand what living in a multi-ethnic neighborhood means to residents and what kind of interracial relationships they have, this book's author participated in neighborhood events, conducted intensive interviews, and surveyed the pseudonymous neighborhood's black, white, and Latino households. While the evidence that residential segregation helps maintain racial inequality is well-established, the book demonstrates that the relationship between spatial proximity (how closely different racial-ethnic groups live to each other) and equity is not fixed. In addition to contributing to conversations on residential integration, the book addresses issues of diversity and inclusion in multi-ethnic spaces. It explains how contemporary understandings of diversity are neither about equity nor justice, but instead reinforce stubbornly resilient white privilege. Ultimately, a desire for diversity and good intentions alone do not challenge structural inequality. This book makes a case for how privilege is reproduced in quotidian environments, through banal and seemingly innocuous practices, and calls on readers to interrogate common-sense understandings of space, power, and inequality to better understand how race functions in multi-ethnic America.