Prosperity, Immigration and Neighborhood Change in Silicon Valley, 1990-2000.

This paper explores immigration and neighborhood change in Silicon Valley during a period of rapid economic expansion and displacement of the white majority. Measures of employment, housing conditions, and racial and ethnic succession are supplemented with consideration of the effects of housing foreclosure and environmental pollution on neighborhood change examined at the block group level of analysis. The analysis of mean differences reveals clear increases in ethnic residential segregation in Santa Clara County during the 1990s. Contrary to predictions of assimilation theories the mean proportion white residents is lower in 2000 than in 1990 in all ethnic block groups, regardless of whether they are below or above median county income. The cumulative findings strongly support the alternative hypothesis that ethnic residential segregation intensified in Silicon Valley during the 1990s, regardless of the income level of the neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]