Operationalizing City Level Effects: How Cities Drive Economic Stratification

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 15. Socioeconomic Segregation

Abstract

While individual studies that have isolated the importance of discrete city level processes in driving variation in household economic outcomes, no framework exists for conceptualizing or testing if taken together, these city level forces represent a collective dimension of stratification. The work of the paper is to address this gap by first, identifying and operationalizing a set of city level drivers of economic stratification and second, empirically testing the relationship between the city level processes, what I term here - “city effects ” - and disparities in household economic wellbeing. To do so, the article brings together the small but growing body literature on the relationship between the city and household economic stratification. This review serves as the foundation for identifying and operationalizing a set of city effects variables. The city effects variables identified through the literature include; the strength of local markets (labor and housing), variation in city capital (human and social), municipal fiscal health, and geographic location/isolation. For the purposes of this study, the three dimensions of household economic wellbeing include measures of household income, wealth, and economic vulnerability. These city effects and household economic outcome measures are collected for 222 Northeast cities and serve as the foundation for the first City Effects database. Fixed Effects Generalized Least Squared modeling is used to test the relationship between the city effects and household outcome measures. Whether measured by income, wealth, or economic vulnerability, findings empirically demonstrates the city as a driver of household economic stratification.

Author

• Alexis Mann, Brandeis University