Measuring residential segregation with spatial indices: an appraisal and applications for the metropolitan area of Rome

Over the last decades there have been important methodological advances in measuring residential segregation, especially concerning spatial indices. After a discussion of the fundamental concepts some of the numerous indices are introduced. The contribution is based on data on the number of foreign citizens resident in the census enumeration area that form metropolitan area of Rome. Data refer to the population censuses 2001 and 2011. The focus is on indices that consider the spatial location of the single enumeration area. Applying the indices to the metropolitan area of Rome serves as a test of the practical and potential usefulness of the proposed measures and their possible interpretation. We will show that few indices suffice to describe in an exhaustive way the segregation of foreign communities.