What does this indicator measure?

This indicator is a measure of the White/Black dissimilarity index in the Syracuse, Albany, Buffalo, and Rochester Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s) in 2010.

The dissimilarity index measures the relative separation or integration of groups across all neighborhoods of a city or metropolitan area. If a city’s white-black dissimilarity index were 65, that would mean that 65% of white people would need to move to another neighborhood to make whites and blacks evenly distributed across all neighborhoods.  (http://www.censusscope.org/us/s40/p75000/chart_dissimilarity.html)

Cites with an index score of 30 or below are considered to have low levels of segregation.  Cities with an index score between 40 and 50 have moderate segregation, while cities with scores over 60 have high levels of segregation.

Across U.S. metros, segregation lowers important measures of trust and social capital, which will tend to weaken economic performance.  Academic literature suggests that segregation negatively affects metro area cohesion and cross-jurisdictional cooperation. —explanation courtesy of Brookings Institute