Separate and unequal.

Despite strident efforts to eradicate it, housing segregation remains alive, well and firmly entrenched in the nation's metropolitan neighborhoods. A 1991 Knight-ridder Newspapers study comparing the 1980 and 1990 censuses reveals that more than 30% of African-American and 66% of whites reside in "racially isolated" neighborhoods. This trends has implications for everything from black children's access to quality schools to African-american voting power in congressional elections. Epidemic "white flight" to the suburbs and insidious housing discrimination practices, among other causes, have made northern and industrial cities prime breeding grounds for residential segregation. Chicago leads the nation as the most isolated metropolitan area for blacks, with 71% of its African-American residents living in nearly all-black localities.