Patterns of settlement following forced migration: the case of bosnians in the United States

Abstract

This article provides a descriptive analysis of the geographic distribution of Bosnian-born U.S. residents using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The data show that Bosnians remain highly concentrated in a handful of metropolitan areas, with little evidence of dispersal or of residential changes between these areas. Patterns of settlement within each area vary, with Bosnians in Chicago and St. Louis spread across middle-income census tracts, those in Utica concentrated in the lowest-income tracts, and those in other cities distributed more uniformly in terms of tract income. These patterns suggest that future research might usefully focus on the causes of this variation, including the role of networks and historical migration patterns as well as internal divisions within the Bosnian diaspora.