Neighborhood Economic Change in an Era of Metropolitan Divergence

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

Abstract

Urban scholars’ dominant focus on neighborhood-level income inequality and economic change obscures metropolitan-level processes’ role. I propose a model linking the two spatial scales that: (1) distinguishes between neighborhood income shifts relative to other neighborhoods within the same metro (local fluidity) and to the national neighborhood distribution (national mobility); (2) estimates variation in each outcome across metros; and (3) decomposes the variation in each as a function of distinct neighborhood- and metro-level factors. Using multilevel analysis of Census 2000, American Community Survey (ACS) 2011 – 2015, and Equality of Opportunity Project data, I find that 7% of the variation in local fluidity and 14% of the variation in national mobility resides between, rather than within, metros. The place stratification and ecological context accounts of spatial inequality provide considerable leverage in accounting for each respective axis of variation. These insights lay the groundwork for finer-grained models that clarify the multilevel processes driving various types of neighborhood change and that illuminate each variant’s consequences for community conditions and residents’ outcomes.

Author

• Jared N. Schachner, Harvard University