The life of a young person in the U.S. is defined as much by their geographic location as it is by their family’s socioeconomic situation. Everything from the quality of their education, to the extracurricular opportunities that they are able to participate in is impacted. Further, racism, classism, and sexism from the past and present continues to have a tremendous impact on a student’s future success as an adult.

A young person growing up in one neighborhood, state, or region of the United States will therefore have more or fewer opportunities as a result. The experience of a youth who is Black in the U.S. South, for instance will vary tremendously from a White youth on the U.S. West Coast. Research has shown that these realities can be broken down along many variables, from healthcare and life expectancy to career success and socio-economic outcomes.

While many young people tend to live with their immediate family, some may also live in less traditional living situations, including with grandparents or other family members. In urban areas, there tends to be more racial and ethnic diversity in schools and communities that allows young people to engage with people from different backgrounds while in rural areas, there tends to be less diversity. While it was ruled that racial segregation among schools and other public spaces is illegal in 1954, with the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision, many schools in the United States continue to be deeply segregated by race. This is because where a student goes to public schools is dependent upon their zip code and the property taxes that are paid within that zip code, which is correlated to how much money a family earns and their race.