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Rising income inequality has led to a segregation of Americans who are clustering in neighborhoods in which most residents are like them - either rich or poor - a new study by the Pew Research Center has said. "The country has increasingly sorted itself into areas where people are surrounded by more of their own kind, if you will," said Paul Taylor, the Pew Center 's director of demographic trends and a co-author of the report, adding that the majority of neighborhoods in the country are still mostly middle class or mixed. The study, which detailed the increasing isolation of the richest and the poorest in America , said the percentage of upper-income households situated in affluent neighborhoods doubled between 1980 and 2010, rising to 18 percent. In the same time frame, the share of lower-income households located in mostly poorer neighborhoods rose from 23 percent to 28 percent, reports the Washington Post. The Pew study is the latest scholarly analysis of census data showing the impact of a slow and steady squeezing of the middle class, which in turn has swelled the two income extremes. Pew found that the trend is most pronounced in the Southwest. It found that three cities with the most income segregation in the country are in Texas- San Antonio, Houston and Dallas. Washington falls in the middle in terms of income segregation, placing it slightly above the national average, according to the study. Both Pew and a study by two Stanford University sociologists last year revealed that the biggest factor behind the growing residential isolation is a rise in income inequality. The rising phenomenon of segregation by income - at a time when segregation by race is on the decline - may have implications for communities and politics. Sean Reardon, one of the Stanford sociologists, said a neighborhood that lacks socioeconomic diversity could be less supportive of taxes to fund schools, parks and social services in other neighborhoods. "If people with most of the money and wealth live separately from everyone else, there's going to be less investment in the neighborhoods where the middle class and the poor live," he said.

Rise in income inequality leading to segregation of rich and poor in US: Study