“I live in a very, very, very Caucasian town.”

William lives in Islip Terrace, where he observes that there are not more than two or three other black families in the town. He didn’t know about the type of effort put into the segregation of the New York City suburbs when they were being developed and he thinks more needs to be taught and talked about diversity to put the region on the right path forward.

As a follow-up to nextLI’s 2019 survey of the next generation of Long Islanders, nextLI conducted two focus groups to look at the future of diversity and housing on Long Island.

Discussions centered on the changing demographics of Long Island, perceptions of Long Island’s multicultural climate, the racial and ethnic diversity in our communities, the role of school districts in diversity and reactions to Newsday’s Long Island Divided series.