With much anticipation, Tiffani opens her Ethnoracial Equity Neighborhood Dataset and begins exploring the data with this question in mind: If I go from economically advantaged neighborhoods and work my way down the neighborhood stratification ladder, how far would I need to go before reaching the threshold of having the majority of an ethnoracial group represented? Generally speaking, she knows that there are three neighborhood types: advantaged, disadvantaged, and middling, but she appreciates having a dataset that offers more nuance. Going from the top of the ladder to the bottom, Tiffani’s dataset consists of the following socioeconomic neighborhood types: 1) advantaged, 2) semi-advantaged, 3) middling, 4) semi-disadvantaged, and 5) disadvantaged.
Tiffani explores the dataset and sees that each neighborhood type is clearly identified, which makes her work much easier. By referring to the summary statistics made available for each neighborhood type, she gets a clear picture of the dynamics at play with respect to ethnoracial group representation at each socioeconomic level. Her simple strategy is to center each ethnoracial group and make note of their within-group percentage at each level and summing these percentages together until more than 50 percent of the ethnoracial group is represented.
Source: US Census Bureau. 2024. "American Community Survey, Five-Year Estimates."
For both White and Asian households, Tiffani notes that it didn’t take long to have the majorities of each group represented (see table above). Before needing to go beyond the advantaged neighborhoods threshold, 53.2 percent of White households and 60.2 percent of Asian households are represented as of Summer 2026. For both Black and Latino households, Tiffani sees that she must journey further. In the case of Latino households, only one more downward stop was necessary. Before crossing beyond the middling neighborhood threshold, 51.5 percent of Latino households are represented. When it comes to Black households, only 43.6 percent of households are represented at this same level, which means crossing the disadvantaged neighborhoods threshold before reaching majority-of-group status. With 32.4 percent of Black households residing in semi-disadvantaged neighborhoods, majority-of-group status is easily reached at this point, with 76.0 percent of Black households represented at this stage of the downward journey.
Tiffani notes that these are not happy facts, but they are facts nonetheless. Given the relative ease with which she was able to find and note these stats on ethnoracial representation across neighborhood types, she is curious to learn more about homeowner dynamics. She views homeownership as a specific place-making orientation and is also aware of how strongly the Atlanta MSA performed in comparison with its housing stability peers on the Black homeownership equity metric. So, using the same basic method, Tiffani begins exploring how long of a downward journey through neighborhood types it takes for the homeowner segments of each ethnoracial group to reach majority-of-group status.
Source: US Census Bureau. 2024. "American Community Survey, Five-Year Estimates."
Right off the bat, Tiffani notices that the pattern for homeowner households is looking the same as the pattern for all households detailed earlier. Both White and Asian homeowner households reach majority-of-group status before crossing beyond the advantaged neighborhoods threshold. 56.6 percent of White homeowners are represented at this stage and 65.5 percent of Asian homeowners. Comparatively, 39.5 percent of Latino homeowner households are covered at this same level and only 28.5 percent of Black homeowner households. Moving down to the middling socioeconomic level, the additional 21.8 percent of homeowners pushes the Latino group to majority-of-group status (61.3 percent) and the same goes for Black homeowners, with an additional 23.8 percent of homeowners allowing this group to reach a total of 52.3 percent of homeowners represented.
Tiffani makes it her business to note the fact that the Black American population is the only ethnoracial group among the four whose general household majority-of-group threshold (semi-disadvantaged) is different from their homeowner household threshold (middling). Her wheels start turning for why this might be and makes a note to dig deeper. Going back to the Benchmark Your Metro findings, Tiffani is jolted by how this finding showing that the majority of Black homeowners in Metro Atlanta reside in neighborhoods that are middling and above—adds more context for Atlanta’s comparatively high Black homeownership numbers. Fully aware that a Black population could have strong homeownership equity but have most homeowners living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, she sees great value in knowing that Metro Atlanta's population is one that enjoys relatively high homeownership equity with these homes actually owned in neighborhoods that lean more advantaged than disadvantaged. So, another question that lingers is whether these statistics could serve as benchmarks for other metropolitan areas. In other words, how many other communities are matching or exceeding Atlanta’s socioeconomic—ethnoracial profile as of Summer 2026?
Next time: after having some of her initial questions answered, Tiffani starts looking at the cross tabulation data that is provided through the Neighborhood Deep-Dive Datasets service. She looks forward to reviewing the distinct neighborhood types that define the residential environments of the largest contingents of each ethnoracial group.