How Does Housing Supply Impact Asian American Segregation?

• In Event: Housing Policy, Residential Mobility, and Inequality: New Perspectives on Residential Change

Abstract

In recent decades, many American cities have experienced significant growth in their Asian populations, accompanied by increasing racial segregation between Asian and non-Hispanic White populations (Iceland et al., 2014). Prior research has typically framed this trend as a case of self-segregation among Asian Americans or, more recently, as a consequence of White flight, where White populations move out of areas undergoing racial transition due to the growth of Asian populations (Li, 1998; Kye, 2023). However, limited attention has been given to the role of urban planning and housing policies in shaping Asian residential patterns, despite growing evidence of their critical role in influencing racial segregation (Rothstein, 2017). Increasingly, research links racial segregation with restrictive local land use regulations and planning processes that inhibit the construction of new housing and raise housing costs, particularly in predominantly White, middle-class suburbs (Pendall, 2000; Trounstine, 2020). While Asian Americans are disproportionately concentrated in expensive housing markets with limited new development, research on these exclusionary local housing policies often neglects their specific impacts on this group. This gap in the literature raises an important question: How do uneven housing supply patterns across suburbs influence Asian American residential patterns and their racial segregation from other groups?

In this study, I argue that suburban housing supply dynamics play a critical yet underexplored role in shaping contemporary Asian American residential and segregation patterns. Analyzing longitudinal census data from 1980 to 2019, I find that Asian segregation is increasingly attributable to suburban dynamics. I pay particular attention to suburban locales, considering the extensive role of local governments in regulating housing supply and the local taxes and provision of public goods and services (Freemark et al. 2020; Whittemore, 2021). Multivariate analysis reveals that Asian population growth is higher in suburbs with greater supplies of single-family and multi-family housing units, and that the association between supply and population growth is greater for Asians compared to other racial groups. While both single-family and multi-family housing supply are positively associated with greater local Asian population growth, I also find that their effects vary regarding racial segregation within those suburbs. Additionally, I find that the uneven regional distribution of housing supply across suburban places also influences racial segregation between suburbs. These findings suggest that while suburban housing supply expands opportunities for Asian Americans to move into places where development occurs, it may also contribute to their segregation at different geographic scales, depending on the type of housing supplied and how they are distributed regionally. Therefore, my findings call on researchers and policymakers to recognize how housing development patterns contribute to emerging forms of segregation in American cities, extending beyond the traditional Black-White binary.

Author

• Taesoo Song, University of California, Berkeley
  Presenting Author