Redistribution and assimilation of ethnic populations: The Los Angeles case

Redistribution relative to metropolitan growth of Negro, other non-white and Spanish name populations is examined in Los Angeles County from 1940 to 1960 for a comparable grid of subareas. The subareas are defined relative to their maturity at different time points in order to partially control for population redistribution effects of neighborhood life histories, the spread of older subareas, and the persistence of neighborhood patterns. Shifts in ethnic concentration are shown for both older and newer subareas. Concurrent changes in neighborhood social structures and ethnic populations are described. Findings are categorized under three themes: First, ethnic population increments and redistribution were generally restricted to expanding older subareas. Ethnic populations did not spatially expand at a rate equal to the spread of the metropolis or of older subareas. Second, segregation is greater in both older and newer neighborhoods for Negroes than for other ethnic populations. Negroes experienced the largest proportional increments in both older and newer subareas, as well as the greatest stability in subarea occupancy. Finally, the spatial separation of ethnic populations impedes assimilation in that unique patterns of neighborhood structure come to characterize different ethnic populations, and changes in ethnic composition are reflected in changes in neighborhood social structures.     

Ethnicity at the Individual and Neighborhood Level as an Explanation for Moving Out of the Neighborhood

We address the influence of both the ethnic composition of the neighborhood and the ethnicity of individual residents on moving out of neighborhoods in the Netherlands. Using the Housing Research Netherlands survey and multinomial logistic regression analyses of moving out versus not moving or moving within the neighborhood, we found that ethnicity at the individual level was not of much importance for moving out. The combination of ethnicity at the individual level and the neighborhood level, however, appeared to be a rather important explanation of geographical mobility. Ethnic minorities are more likely than native Dutch to move within neighborhoods, and less likely to move away from them, as the share of non-western minorities in those neighborhoods increases. Native Dutch move away more frequently than ethnic minorities as the share of non-western ethnic minorities in neighborhoods is greater. These results suggest ethnic enclave formation or place stratification in the Netherlands.     

Schools,Neighborhoods and Selection: Outcomes Across Metropolitan Los Angeles

What is the relationship between school segregation and neighborhood segregation across school districts in Los Angeles County, and are school district outcomes on reading and mathematics scores related to levels of school segregation across these districts? We compute segregation scores using US tract level data for 2000 and use reading and mathematics scores from California State tests. Data from the Los Angeles family and neighborhood survey are used to track individual residential changes and differences in the associated Woodcock Johnson scores. We show that there is a close link between levels of school segregation and neighborhood segregation and that many suburban school districts are relatively integrated across both neighborhoods and schools. When we examine average school district outcomes on reading and mathematics scores we do not find any relationship with levels of segregation. At the same time there is clear evidence of spatial sorting with poorer and lower scoring children moving into school districts (or zones with poorer achieving schools). The multi-level models of segregation and achievement show that the variance in achievement levels across districts is significantly greater than across schools within districts.     

The dynamics of school attainment of England��s ethnic minorities

We exploit a universe dataset of state school students in England with linked test score records to document the evolution of attainment through school for different ethnic groups. The analysis yields a number of striking findings. First, we show that, controlling for personal characteristics, all minority groups make greater progress than White students over secondary schooling. Second, much of this improvement occurs in the high-stakes exams at the end of compulsory schooling. Third, we show that for most ethnic groups, this gain is pervasive, happening in almost all schools in which these students are found.     

Neighborhood Priority or Desegregation Plans? A Spatial Analysis of Voting on San Francisco’s Student Assignment System

In 2011, San Francisco held an unprecedented citywide vote on its public schools’ student assignment policy. Proposition H provides a unique opportunity to learn more about the public’s desire for “neighborhood schools,” as compared to their interest in maintaining districtwide desegregation efforts. This paper takes the approach of applying geographic information system tools and regression analysis to understand the relationships between neighborhood, race, income, and attitudes toward student assignment systems. By comparing the election results with demographics and school quality data, we identify patterns of support for the narrowly defeated proposition. Support for a shift toward neighborhood-based schools was higher in census tracts with high-performing schools, more school age children, high median income, or a large fraction of foreign-born residents, and lower in tracts with a high percentage of Latinos. The shifting race- and class-based politics of the city foreshadow expected demographic shifts in the US.     

Statistical and Perceived Diversity and Their Impacts on Neighborhood Social Cohesion in Germany,France and the Netherlands

The question whether ethnic diversity is associated with declining social cohesion has produced much controversy. We maintain that more attention must be paid to cognitive mechanisms to move the debate ahead. Using survey data from 938 localities in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, we explore a crucial individual-level mechanism: perceptions of diversity. We not only consider perceptions of the amount, but also of the qualitative nature of diversity. By asking about various qualitative aspects of diversity, we test the cognitive salience of three explanations that have been proposed in the literature for negative diversity effects: out-group biases, asymmetric preferences and coordination problems. We show that all three mechanisms matter. Perceptions both mediate statistical diversity effects, and have important explanatory power of their own. Moreover, we are able to address the question to what extend the relationship of perceived diversity and neighborhood social cohesion varies across policy contexts. Based on assumptions in the literature about positive impacts of inclusive and culturally pluralist immigrant integration policy approaches, we hypothesize that ethno-cultural diversity is less negatively related to neighborhood social cohesion in more inclusive policy contexts. Our results provide partial support for this hypothesis as perceived diversity has a significantly stronger negative impact on neighborhood cohesion in Germany.     

Enclaves, neighbourhood effects and employment outcomes: Ethnic minorities in England and Wales

Ethnic minorities in England and Wales are spatially concentrated in relatively-deprived urban areas. Both geographic clustering and the economic characteristics of ethnically-concentrated neighbourhoods can impact upon the opportunities and constraints facing residents of such areas. This paper explores the relationship between the existence of enclaves and the employment prospects of ethnic minorities in England and Wales. It is shown that there is considerable spatial variation in employment outcomes. There is a lower incidence of self-employment in more ethnically-concentrated urban areas, which contradicts the view of ethnic entrepreneurship as an enclave phenomenon. Unemployment rates are also higher for minorities living in more concentrated areas. Enclaves in England and Wales do not appear to offer many economic benefits to minority individuals. Received: 31 December 1999/Accepted: 27 November 2000     

Returns on education amongst men in England and Wales: The impact of residential segregation and ethno-religious background

Individuals’ occupational and educational attainment is influenced by their ethnicity, religion and colour in the UK and elsewhere. In this paper, we analyse the impact of ethnicity, religion and colour along with residential segregation¹ and socio-economic deprivation on returns to education for men in England and Wales. We analyse the 2001 UK census data by employing multi-level logistic regression models. It is found that non-White groups including Christian Black-African, UK born Sikh-Indians and South Asian Muslims are found to suffer an ethnic penalty compared to Christian White-British. While there is evidence to suggest that Muslim men may experience a greater penalty compared to some non-Whites other non-Muslim groups too face ethno-religious penalties, sometimes even more severely such as in the case of Christian Black-Africans. Socio-economic difficulties faced by ethnic minorities are also linked to spatial segregation only when associated with high levels of area deprivation. This suggests that what matters may not be segregation per se, but whether or not it is associated with deprivation.     

How Durable Are Ethnoracial Segregation and Spatial Disadvantage? Intergenerational Contextual Mobility in France

Building on emerging research into intergenerational contextual mobility, I use longitudinal data from France (1990–2008) to investigate the extent to which second-generation immigrants and the French majority continue to live in similar neighborhood environments during childhood and adulthood. To explore the persistence of ethnoracial segregation and spatial disadvantage, I draw on two measures of neighborhood composition: the immigrant share and the unemployment rate. The analysis explores the individual and contextual factors underpinning intergenerational contextual mobility and variation across immigrant-origin groups. The results document a strong stability of neighborhood environments from childhood to adulthood, especially with regard to the ethnoracial composition of the neighborhood. Individual-level factors are quite weak in accounting for these patterns compared with the characteristics of the city of origin. Moreover, the degree of contextual mobility between childhood and adulthood varies across groups. I find that neighborhood environments are more stable over time for non-European second-generation immigrants. The findings offer important new empirical contributions to the French literature on the residential segregation of immigrants and will more broadly be of interest to scholars of intergenerational spatial and social mobility.     

Neighborhood selection and the social reproduction of concentrated racial inequality

In this paper, we consider neighborhood selection as a social process central to the reproduction of racial inequality in neighborhood attainment. We formulate a multilevel model that decomposes multiple sources of stability and change in longitudinal trajectories of achieved neighborhood income among nearly 4,000 Chicago families followed for up to seven years wherever they moved in the United States. Even after we adjust for a comprehensive set of fixed and time-varying covariates, racial inequality in neighborhood attainment is replicated by movers and stayers alike. We also study the emergent consequences of mobility pathways for neighborhood-level structure. The temporal sorting by individuals of different racial and ethnic groups combines to yield a structural pattern of flows between neighborhoods that generates virtually nonoverlapping income distributions and little exchange between minority and white areas. Selection and racially shaped hierarchies are thus mutually constituted and account for an apparent equilibrium of neighborhood inequality.     

Birds of a Feather,or Friend of a Friend? Using Exponential Random Graph Models to Investigate Adolescent Social Networks

In this article, we use newly developed statistical methods to examine the generative processes that give rise to widespread patterns in friendship networks. The methods incorporate both traditional demographic measures on individuals (age, sex, and race) and network measures for structural processes operating on individual, dyadic, and triadic levels. We apply the methods to adolescent friendship networks in 59 U.S. schools from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We model friendship formation as a selection process constrained by individuals’ sociality (propensity to make friends), selective mixing in dyads (friendships within race, grade, or sex categories are differentially likely relative to cross-category friendships), and closure in triads (a friend’s friends are more likely to become friends), given local population composition. Blacks are generally the most cohesive racial category, although when whites are in the minority, they display stronger selective mixing than do blacks when blacks are in the minority. Hispanics exhibit disassortative selective mixing under certain circumstances; in other cases, they exhibit assortative mixing but lack the higher-order cohesion common in other groups. Grade levels are always highly cohesive, while females form triangles more than males. We conclude with a discussion of how network analysis may contribute to our understanding of sociodemographic structure and the processes that create it.     

Realizing Racial and Ethnic Neighborhood Preferences? Exploring the Mismatches Between What People Want,Where They Search,and Where They Live

The housing search process is an overlooked mechanism in the scholarly research that seeks to understand the causes of persistent racial residential segregation in the United States. Past research has explored in detail the preferences people hold in terms of the racial and ethnic composition of their neighborhoods, and more recently some have also examined the correspondence between racial and ethnic neighborhood preferences and current neighborhood racial/ethnic composition. But an intermediate stage—the racial/ethnic composition of where people search—has not been investigated. We analyze a subsample (n = 382) from the 2004–2005 Chicago Area Study to demonstrate the value of systematically studying the matches—or mismatches—between preferences, search locations, and neighborhood outcomes. We find that for whites, not only their current neighborhoods but also the neighborhoods in which they search for housing have larger percentages of whites than they say they prefer. In contrast, blacks—and to a lesser extent Latinos—search in neighborhoods that correspond to their preferences, but reside in neighborhoods with a larger percentage own group. Logistic regression analyses reveal that mismatches are associated with both a lack of information and inadequate finances, but also may be due to socially desirable responding for whites in particular. Our results provide suggestive evidence of the importance of unpacking the search process more generally and draw attention to what are likely to be productive new future data collection efforts as well as an area potentially ripe for policy interventions.     

Creative Class Concentrations in Shanghai,China: What is the Role of Neighborhood Social Tolerance and Life Quality Supportive Conditions?

Creative class refers to the demographic segment composed of intellectuals, knowledge intensive workers and artists in different fields. Creative class is of essential social significance in that its members are capable of booming regional economy through innovation. Rather few studies have empirically examined the neighborhood social determinants of intra-urban creative class concentrations (CCCs), especially in the developing countries. Using the case of Shanghai city in China, this paper characterizes the CCCs in relation to social tolerance and life quality supportive conditions (LQSCs) at district level. Data for CCCs are collected from Shanghai’s Population Census (2010) at the district level. A set of social diversity indices (ethnic, education, income, marriage status, and birth place) are used as proxy for tolerance and LQSCs are described by a set of indicators from 8 domains (job chance, medical care, educational facilities, commutation, food resources, housing, leisure, and natural amenities). Multivariable linear regression is employed to identify the determinants of CCCs. Results show that both neighborhood social tolerance and LQSCs have significant influences on different categories of CCCs. In particular, creative class is attracted by the neighborhoods that are open and welcoming to the outsiders. In addition, creative class emphasizes accessible medical care, traveling convenience, elementary education institution, great housing choices, and more natural amenities in their neighborhood. The variance decomposition method demonstrates that neighborhood LQSC determinants are more important for the intellectuals, knowledge workers and total CCCs. For the artists, the neighborhood social tolerance determinants are more influential. Our study generates a set of neighborhood social indicators to understand the intra-urban CCCs.     

中国地区失业率的邻居效应实证分析

本文通过空间权重法和空间虚拟变量法设计了中国地区失业率邻居效应变量,并将其加入地区失业率模型后使用1995～2007年中国省域数据进行实证研究。实证结果表明中国地区失业率邻居效应显著存在,这表明毗邻省份失业情况会明显影响本地区失业率水平,这意味着本省在进行就业政策制定时需考虑毗邻省份的实际情况,与此同时,毗邻省份间的充分沟通与合作应成为减少本省遭受外部失业冲击影响的可能措施。     

Criticising the Solitary Mobile Subject: Researching Relational Mobilities and Reflecting on Mobile Methods

One of the key arguments of the mobilities paradigm is that people’s mobility practices are embedded in their spatial, cultural, political, economical, social and personal context. Yet, empirical mobility research tends to research these two sides of the social separately – either mobility practices and their subjective sense and experience or their discursive, spatial or structural foundation. Taking this desideratum as point of departure, I will make a proposal for researching the links between structures and practices of mobilities consisting of the application of multiple correspondence analysis. This proposal attempts, furthermore, to operationalise mobilities as relational practices, which reinforces that social networks rather than solitary subjects are the origin of mobility decisions. This methodological approach is demonstrated by a comparative data analysis of movement patterns in England and Switzerland. In the final part of the paper, I will reflect upon methods and quantification more generally – against the background of an understanding of mobilities research as being also critical and political.     

Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage and Adult Mortality: Insights for Racial and Ethnic Differences

While racial and ethnic differences in mortality are pervasive and well documented, less is known about how mortality risk varies by neighborhood socioeconomic status across racial and ethnic identity. We conducted a prospective analysis on a sample of adults living at or below 300% poverty with 8 years of the National Health Interview Survey (N = 159,400) linked to 11,600 deaths to examine the association between neighborhood disadvantage and mortality for non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and U.S.- and foreign-born Hispanics. Using multilevel logistic regression, we find that the probability of death from any cause for lower-income adults is higher in more-disadvantaged neighborhoods, compared to less-disadvantaged neighborhoods, but only for whites. The adjusted likelihood of death for blacks and foreign-born Hispanics is not associated with neighborhood disadvantage, and the likelihood of death for U.S.-born Hispanics is lower in more-disadvantaged neighborhoods. While future research and policy should focus on improving health-promoting resources in all communities, care should be given to better understanding why race/ethnic groups have differential mortality returns with respect to area-specific socioeconomic conditions.     

Incorporating Neighborhood Choice in a Model of Neighborhood Effects on Income

Studies of neighborhood effects often attempt to identify causal effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, such as income, education, employment, and health. However, selection looms large in this line of research, and it has been argued that estimates of neighborhood effects are biased because people nonrandomly select into neighborhoods based on their preferences, income, and the availability of alternative housing. We propose a two-step framework to disentangle selection processes in the relationship between neighborhood deprivation and earnings. We model neighborhood selection using a conditional logit model, from which we derive correction terms. Driven by the recognition that most households prefer certain types of neighborhoods rather than specific areas, we employ a principle components analysis to reduce these terms into eight correction components. We use these to adjust parameter estimates from a model of subsequent neighborhood effects on individual income for the unequal probability that a household chooses to live in a particular type of neighborhood. We apply this technique to administrative data from the Netherlands. After we adjust for the differential sorting of households into certain types of neighborhoods, the effect of neighborhood income on individual income diminishes but remains significant. These results further emphasize that researchers need to be attuned to the role of selection bias when assessing the role of neighborhood effects on individual outcomes. Perhaps more importantly, the persistent effect of neighborhood deprivation on subsequent earnings suggests that neighborhood effects reflect more than the shared characteristics of neighborhood residents: place of residence partially determines economic well-being.     

Segregation Through the Lens of Housing Unit Transition: What Roles Do the Prior Residents, the Local Micro-Neighborhood, and the Broader Neighborhood Play?

This study focuses on segregation as it plays out at the micro-level of housing unit transition. Employing a unique sample that places housing units into micro-neighborhoods and census tracts, this study tests whether the characteristics of the previous residents of the unit, the local micro-neighborhood, or the broader tract best explain the race/ethnicity of the new residents in a housing unit. The results show that the racial/ethnic composition of the local micro-neighborhood has even stronger effects on the race/ethnicity of the new residents than does the racial/ethnic composition of the broader census tract. The results also reveal that even when the racial/ethnic composition of these two contexts are accounted for, the race/ethnicity of the prior residents has a very strong effect on the race/ethnicity of the new residents. I consider possible explanations for this household-level effect. One new theoretical explanation I put forward is that prospective residents use the race/ethnicity of the prior residents as a signal regarding the neighborhood??s appropriateness for them; I test and find that this hypothesized signaling effect is even stronger in certain micro-neighborhood, neighborhood, and county contexts.     

How urbanites define their neighborhoods

This paper explores the ways that residents of the Seattle metropolitan region define "neighborhood" in the abstract and their own neighborhoods in particular. On the whole, the neighborhood is regarded as a relatively limited unit, both in terms of areal size and functional relevance. Two major dimensions of neighborhood definition are evident. Individuals tend to define neighborhood primarily in terms of either human interaction or pure space, and they also differ in their views on its geographic size and institutional development. The two dimensions of definition are shown to vary with patterns of local activity, social-demographic characteristics, and the physical environment. While only a small proportion of the variation in responses is explained, the results suggest that neighborhood definitions are rational responses to the social and physical position of the respondent within urban society.     

The spatial separation of the poor in Canadian cities

We used the 1991 Canadian census to examine the extent of spatial separation of the poor in Canadian cities. Although there were no extensive areas of blight, decay, or housing abandonment, we found high spatial separation of poor visible minorities in the selected cities. The index of dissimilarity indicates high segregation of poor blacks and moderate separation of poor Asians from the nonpoor population. We tested the effects of three major structural factors--racial and ethnic segregation, income segregation, and urban redevelopment--and found that racial and ethnic residential patterns are related strongly to the spatial separation of poor persons. The relationship between income segregation and spatial separation of the poor is not significant, however. We also found that the relationship between urban redevelopment and spatial separation of the poor pertains only to blacks. These findings suggest that blacks are vulnerable in the process of urban redevelopment.