How low can it go? Declining black-white segregation in a multiethnic context

We extend research on whites' neighborhood contact with blacks; population composition, and prospects for desegregation by developing a new measure of the floor of racial residential segregation under conditions of low black- white contact. The measure incorporates the way in which multiethnic contex ts further constrain levels of black-white segregation. The results show th at black-white desegregation is likely when the black population is small, but is unlikely otherwise. Pet, when multiple ethnic groups are sufficientl y large, a moderate level of black-white segregation is necessary for white s to maintain low neighborhood contact with blacks, even when the proportio n of African Americans is small.