Children left behind: How US metropolitan areas are failing America's children

DiversityData.org allows visitors to explore how metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. perform on a diverse range of social measures that comprise a well-rounded life experience.  On this Website are socioeconomic indicators for metropolitan areas in the form of tables, maps and reports.  Data cover various racial/ethnic, income and nativity groups in domains such as housing opportunities, economic opportunities, residential integration, and health.  The first report, “Children Left Behind:  How Metropolitan Areas are Failing America’s Children” focuses on 100 metropolitan areas with the largest child populations and concludes that across metropolitan America, black and Hispanic children face particularly severe challenges when compared to white and Asian children.  Not only do black and Hispanic children live in families that experience many disadvantages, but disparities among individuals and families are exacerbated by vast inequalities in neighborhoods and school environments.  These inequalities go far beyond what can be explained by income differences, as poor black and Hispanic children tend to encounter environments considerably worse than poor white and Asian children.  Place matters greatly.  Depending upon where they live, kids will either find or not find many of the conditions that allow them to be healthy and interact successfully with their environment.  These conditions include neighbourhood health and safety, housing options, degree of residential and school segregation, recreational choices, and services such as education, transportation, family support, employment, and other opportunities for economic advancement.  These unequal conditions suggest a range of policy solutions to improve child well-being, reduce child poverty, remove barriers to homeownership, reduce disparities in education, increase mobility and choice, invest in early childhood development, and improve schools and environments in disadvantaged neighborhoods.