Persistence of Immigrant Enclaves: Stability, Succession, or Stuck in Place?

• In Event: Housing, Neighborhoods, and Institutions: Structural Inequality in Urban Communities

Abstract

This article highlights immigrant enclaves as a potential case study of durable and stable neighborhoods, providing insights on the role of immigration and immigrant communities in an era of residential instability and neighborhood change.

Immigrant enclaves have long served important social and economic functions, especially for newly-arrived immigrants (Wirth 1927; Massey 1985). Recent studies have highlighted new immigrant destinations (Singer 2014) and the suburbanization of poor immigrants (Suro, Wilson, and Singer 2011; Singer et al. 2009; Walker 2018), suggesting that traditional models of immigrant enclaves in central cities could become priced-out and replaced. Furthermore, the socioeconomic make-up of these communities are often associated with higher risks of displacement and instability (Hepburn, Louis, and Desmond 2020).

Drawing on Census and ACS data between 2000 and 2019 across 238 MSAs, I applied spatial analysis to develop indicators of immigrant enclaves then further classified them based on how their enclave status has changed over time: Durable enclaves, disappearing enclaves, and emerging enclaves. Preliminary results show that the majority of immigrant enclaves identified in 2000 have remained immigrant enclaves in 2019, demonstrating the entrenchment of ethnic enclaves in American metropolitans.

I further assess whether this durability translates to residential stability—proxied by gentrification measures and eviction rates—as stable composition might obscure underlying movement in and out of the neighborhood. Despite having the highest average poverty rates, the lowest average household incomes, and the lowest proportion of college-educated residents, putting them more likely to be at risk of gentrification, durable enclaves are less likely to gentrify compared to similar non-enclave neighborhoods and other enclave types. Additional analysis on a subsample of 54 MSAs show durable enclaves to have lower eviction rates. They also do not have higher mobility rates (percentage of households that have moved in the past decade) than other neighborhood types. Together, the results suggest that, despite their concentrated disadvantage, durable enclaves enjoy an unexpected level of residential stability. To better understand the mechanisms behind the entrenchment and stability of immigrant enclaves, I plan to conduct additional analysis using confidential Census household level data. The data allows me to track the entry, exits, and replacement of household within immigrant neighborhoods (Ellen and O’Regan 2011) and better inform whether such durability is driven by immigrant replenishment or by lack of upward mobility.

Lastly, a nonsignificant portion of immigrant enclaves have undergone demographic changes. Diminishing enclaves are more likely to have undergone gentrification.  They are the only neighborhood type to experience declines in foreign-born populations and increase in White population, suggesting  residential turnover and replacement of immigrant residents. Meanwhile, emerging enclaves are the most likely to be suburban, have higher average household incomes, and lower poverty rates, reflecting the development of ethnoburbs (Li 2008). Better understanding what drives those changes can further shed light on why some immigrant enclaves remain entrenched, while some transformed.

Author

• Lillian Leung, Princeton University
  Presenting Author