Logan’s current research spans a large number of areas: immigration, neighborhoods, spatial inequality, families and cities, both in the U.S. and in China, Bulgaria and the Netherlands as well. The culmination of his well-known work on residential segregation using Census 2000 data, conducted at Albany, is found in a co-authored article in Demography examining the changes in residential segregation over two decades. It shows that while black-white segregation declined overall, blacks have not moved to less segregated areas as did Hispanics and Asians, rising black incomes have not contributed to integration, nor is black-white segregation reduced in the presence of larger Hispanic and Asian populations. As was true in the past, the declines in black-white segregation are found in the South and West and in areas with small black populations. His work on segregation has led to several articles or chapters on race, which address whiteness and the importance of race among Hispanic Americans and among Africans and Afro-Caribbeans. He has also published several chapters on other spatial issues that bear the imprint of his Albany research: spatial clustering methods for identifying ethnic neighborhoods, analyses of settlement patterns of immigrants in metropolitan America, and an examination of the Asian immigrant enclave in Flushing, NY (co-authored with associate Christopher Smith). Another recent publication looks at urban policy, specifically at what accounts for differences across neighborhoods in urban services. Most recently, he has begun examining public-policy impacts on school segregation, and is planning a project linking desegregation orders to whites’ residential choices. He is also leading a collaborative NSF funded project on the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, which takes a unique eco-spatial approach to better understand population vulnerability to natural disasters.
Building on work begun as part of the Urban China Research Network, which he founded, Logan continues research on social change in urban China, and it is reflected in a recent chapter on intergenerational family relationships in the U.S. and China, as well as in others examining the growth of medium-size cities in China and the linkages between neighborhood inequality and market reform. His second edited book on urban China is currently under review. He continues to participate in the UCRN. His interest in international urban issues can be seen also in his articles on economic stability and urban inequality in Sofia, Bulgaria and on the incorporation of immigrants into neighborhoods in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
In his role as CSDA Director, Logan was the PI of the R24 grant, which is currently expiring, and also on important Ford Foundation, Mellon and NSF projects that ended in 2004. He has received grants from the American Educational Research Association to study school desegregation and from the Russell Sage Foundation to study immigrant pathways to political incorporation. His most recent project is to study the spatial and social impacts of Hurricane Katrina, funded by the National Science Foundation, an interdisciplinary project with an environmental health scientist/epidemiologist, a geologist, and an ecosystem ecologist.