Cars are blocked from the place now known as George Floyd Square.

It makes an effective memorial, posters advise visitors on the proper behaviour, like signs

outside a church forbidding shorts and flash photography.

An art centre has become a museum of protest signs.

White plastic headstones marked with the names of African-Americans killed by the police

stand in a nearby park.

The neighbourhood is a rare racial patchwork, and Minneapolis is an unlikely avatar of

American racism.

But number crunching by the economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues at Harvard University

reveals persistent segregation.

Black boys, born around George Floyd Square 30 years ago, would grab to live in households

with an average annual income of just $17,000.

One in ten would spend time in prison.

Eric Chauvin, the policeman who killed Floyd, grew up in Cottage Grove, a suburb 20 miles

away.

It's a place of detached bungalows with public driveways connected by shared lawns.

It's not rich, but a boy born there 30 years ago could expect to grow up in a household

with an annual income nearly three times higher.

And it's 85% white.

This is Chex and Balance.

I'm John Prado, the economist's US editor.

Each week we take one big theme, shaping American politics and explore it in depth.

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