A year after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, unleashed a torrent of unrest in Ferguson, the St. Louis region has been embroiled in a difficult discussion about race and class — and not just regarding the police.
Questions about whether minorities have access to good jobs, high-performing schools and low-crime neighborhoods have been fiercely debated. And for many, one question informs all those others: Can the barriers that keep blacks out of prosperous, mostly white communities be toppled?
Data suggests that they often cannot. By several measures, the St. Louis region remains among the most segregated places in the country, where most blacks and whites, though sometimes separated by only a short walk, live in different worlds.
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