The analysis by Welch and associates flows from a long tradition of research devoted to understanding the effect of context on racial attitudes. The authors are well-known contributors to the study of racial and urban politics who have done extensive work on residential context, racial attitudes, and social interaction. The distinguishing attribute of this book is the depth to which the authors examine the relationship between neighborhood setting and race. To carry out their investigation, they conducted a 1992 survey of black and white residents in metropolitan Detroit. On the one hand, one can argue that the survey is limited in scope and should have been extended beyond the boundaries of the Detroit area; on the other hand, because of its degree of “hypersegregation,” its large black and white populations, its racially mixed suburban enclaves, and the fact that racial attitudes have been regularly surveyed in the area since the late 1960s (the University of Michigan's Detroit Area Survey), metropolitan Detroit makes a suitable research site for studying neighborhood racial attitudes and perceptions.

This short volume is organized into eight chapters with two appendices describing the contents and items from the 1992 Detroit survey. Each chapter begins by providing background information and ends with clear summaries of the authors’ main points and their main research findings. Their findings are presented in tables and figures that are relatively easy to interpret. The reader, especially those who are unfamiliar with this topic, will be impressed with the literature review.

The introductory chapter lays out the authors’ theoretical expectations. Careful attention should be given to Table 1.1 (p. 12) and Table 1.2 (p. 14) because they provide valuable information on the racial characteristics of six types of neighborhoods to be examined in later chapters. The main theoretical hypothesis stated in the introductory chapter is that “blacks and whites who live in mixed-race communities will be more tolerant of those of the other race” than blacks and whites who reside in other neighborhood settings (p. 5). It becomes clear early on that the overall objective of the study is to specify the conditions under which residential proximity can promote social interaction among racial groups and thereby improve America's interracial relations.

In Chapter 2, the authors provide descriptive information on changing racial attitudes among Detroit area respondents. The analysis is based on a comparison of racial attitudes between their own 1992 survey and the Detroit Area Survey of 1968. The reader may be surprised to find that during the period, blacks and whites remained some distance apart in their attitudes and perceptions of residential segregation. The findings, however, are consistent with the labeling of Detroit as a hypersegregated metropolitan area. Though interesting, there are limits to what one can say about changes in racial attitudes with only two time points of reference. To their credit, the authors acknowledge this limitation and are careful to avoid overstating the significance of their findings.

The heart of the analysis can be found in the middle chapters. Multivariate analysis is used to assess the effect of neighborhood racial context, along with other social and demographic indicators, on casual contact and close interracial friendship (Chapter 3), on perceptions of racial discrimination (Chapter 4), on the psychology of race, that is, racial solidarity (Chapters 5 and 6), and on blacks’ and whites’ attitudes about urban issues (Chapter 7). In general, the findings support their expectations that physical propinquity promotes greater social interaction in racially mixed neighborhoods than in communities that are predominantly black or predominantly white. The findings are not always consistent with theoretical expectation, which serves to illustrate the complexity of studying the nexus between race and residence. In Chapter 3, for example, Welch and colleagues found that the effect of neighborhood context on casual contact and close interracial friendship is much less predictable for blacks than for whites.

The connection between theory and analysis is most evident in Chapters 5 and 6 where the authors examine the effect of neighborhood context on black racial solidarity and on white racial prejudice. The analysis is based on three distinct hypotheses (social density, social salience, and identity supremacy). There is no space here to go into detail on the substance of each hypothesis. Suffice it to say, the hypotheses fit nicely into the theoretical argument that residential context can promote, exacerbate, or have no effect on intraracial attitudes and perceptions. It would have been useful to the reader if the hypotheses had been used in other chapters to posit relationships between variables.

One possible concern with the analysis is causality. Does neighborhood setting affect racial attitudes? Or do racial attitudes affect where one chooses to live? Only the former question is addressed in this book. It would have been interesting to know if their index of racial solidarity (see p. 99 for measurement) affects casual interracial contact and/or close interracial friendship. Despite the causality issue, the analysis is consistently well presented and persuasive.

The findings in Race and Place are based on one metropolitan area. Thus, there are some concerns about generalizability. Even so, the authors have made a valuable contribution by demonstrating that neighborhood racial integration has positive effects in one of the more segregated metropolitan cities in America. Their study will provide a solid foundation for further analysis in more multiethnic communities such as Los Angeles, in cities such as Chicago where enclaves of white ethnic groups reside, and in communities located in the once legally segregated South.