Mary J. Fischer

How segregation concentrates poverty

In this article, we argue that segregation interacts with a variety of structural transformations in society to determine the spatial concentration of poverty. Based on this argument, we then specify a statistical model overcoming methodological problems that have hampered earlier work. Estimates based on US data confirm that racial/ethnic segregation interacts with structural shifts in society to concentrate poverty. By 1990, a powerful interaction between residential segregation and income inequality had emerged to spatially isolate the poor, an interaction the effects of which were buttressed by weaker interactions between segregation, rising class segregation, and stagnating mean incomes. Our analysis reveals how underlying shifts in socio-economic structure can have very different effects on the concentration of poverty experienced by different groups, depending on the degree of racial/ethnic segregation they experience.

The Geography of Inequality in the United States, 1950-2000

lies become more segregated, only one outcome is possible: affluence and poverty both will become more geographically concentrated. Families that are well-off financially will increasingly live near and interact with other affluent families, and those that lack economic resources will live near and interact mainly with other poor families. Under these circumstances, the social worlds of the rich and poor will increasingly diverge. The poor will tend to inhabit high-risk neighborhoods that significantly lower the odds of socioeconomic success, while the affluent will enjoy a safe and secure world that enhances the possibilities of success on a variety of fronts. As they grow apart, the material interests of poor and affluent communities will also diverge. Residents of high-income households in affluent communities (with high property values) will have an incentive to tax themselves at low rates to provide good public services, while poor people living in poor communities (with low property values) will have to tax themselves at high rates if they are to receive services that even approach the quality of those offered in more affluent communities. With high values, however, the same revenue can be generated with lower rates. If the affluent and poor communities correspond to separate taxing

Residential Segregation and Ethnic Enterprise in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

In this paper, we specify and estimate a model of minority group entrepreneurship that incorporates individual, household, and metropolitan-level factors. Among the metropolitan factors we consider is residential segregation, which might be thought to enhance business opportunities by concentrating demand and creating protected market niches. Whereas some degree of geographic concentration may be beneficial for certain types of entrepreneurship, higher levels of residential segregation are likely to be detrimental to entrepreneurial endeavors because of the tendency for segregation to interact with skewed minority income distributions to concentrate poverty geographically. Using data from the 1990 U.S. Census, we estimate a model to measure the effect of segregation on the likelihood of entrepreneurship among different racial/ethnic groups in U.S. metropolitan areas. We find that beyond very moderate levels, segregation actually works to lower the odds of entrepreneurship.

The Ecology of Racial Discrimination

In this article we build on prior studies that have used audit methods to document continued discrimination against African Americans in U.S. housing markets. Whereas prior work focused primarily on measuring racial disparities in housing access, here we seek to determine which personal, ecological, and agent factors raise or lower discrimination. Our data come from phone‐based audit studies of rental housing offered in the Philadelphia metropolitan market in the spring of 1999, the fall of 2000, and the spring of 2002. Male and female auditors called listings to inquire about the availability of units using white middle‐class English, black‐accented English, and Black English Vernacular. Results show that whites are more likely to be favored over black auditors of the same gender when the black auditor speaks Black English Vernacular compared with black‐accented English. Access was also lower in suburbs than the central city and it decreased as distance from a predominantly black neighborhood fell. Blacks experienced much lower access to units marketed by private landlords rather than professional agents. Blacks are more likely to gain access to areas that already have high concentrations of blacks or in areas that are not in danger of black encroachment (i.e., further away from black concentrations). These mechanisms serve to reinforce and replicate segregation.

STEREOTYPE THREAT AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: New Findings from a Racially Diverse Sample of College Freshmen

The theory of stereotype threat was developed to account for persistent minority underachievement in American colleges and universities. It hypothesizes that members of minority groups underperform academically because of unconscious fears of living up to negative group stereotypes. While evidence pertaining to stereotype threat has been positive, it mostly comes from small experimental studies of selected undergraduate subjects at a few universities. In this paper we test the theory of stereotype threat on a large, representative population of college and university students. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, which surveyed nearly 4,000 students at twenty-eight academic institutions, we construct scales to measure stereotype threat and use them to predict grades. We uncover a clear process of disidentification in response to minority stereotyping and show how it, along with other theoretically specified mechanisms, undermines the grade performance of minorities.

The effect of childhood segregation on minority academic performance at selective colleges

Abstract In this study we draw upon data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, a representative survey of nearly 4,000 men and women entering college in the autumn of 1999, to consider the effects of housing and school segregation during childhood on academic performance in college. We show that black and Latino college students, even those enrolled in the nations most selective academic institutions, display large differences in background and experiences that are strongly conditioned by racial segregation. Those coming of age in a segregated environment were less prepared academically and socially for college life, and were more exposed to violence and social disorder while growing up. After documenting these differences, we estimate regression models to predict academic performance as a function of the minority composition of the neighbourhoods and schools where respondents lived ages 6–18, controlling for a variety of individual and family characteristics as well as the correlates of segregation.

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Conditions as Moderators of Family Resource Transmission: High School Completion among At-Risk Youth

We investigate how neighborhood socioeconomic conditions (SES), family resources during adolescence, and high school completion are related for a sample of at-risk youth. Borrowing from the “neighborhood effects” and family literatures, we investigate whether the effects of family economic resources, connections to the community, school, and religious institutions and family structure on high school completion depend on levels of neighborhood SES. Analyses using panel data on nearly five hundred families in urban Philadelphia confirm that high SES neighborhoods enhance parental ability to turn some but not all of their resources into positive educational outcomes for their children. The results provide a basis for understanding the processes whereby neighborhoods influence parent-child resource transmission.

Black and white homebuyer, homeowner, and household segregation in the United States, 1990-2010.

As homeownership has been expanding in the United States over the past several decades, residential segregation between blacks and whites has been declining in most metropolitan areas. However, the degree to which the residential patterns of new homebuyers have mirrored these overall trends in segregation and how the massive increase in home buying has related to changes in segregation has remained largely unexplored. This paper examines the segregation of new black homebuyers from white households, new white homebuyers from black households, and black and white households from each other using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from 1992 to 2010 merged with data from the Census and ACS. I find that black homebuyers are less segregated from white households than black homeowners overall and black households in general, providing evidence in support of the spatial assimilation model that would predict better outcomes for homeowners. Also consistent with the spatial assimilation perspective, I found in the multivariate models that increased income parity between blacks and whites and growth in black lending are associated with average declines in black/white household segregation from 1990 to 2010. Although subprime lending was not associated with overall changes in segregation, metropolitan areas with higher percentages of loans to blacks from subprime lenders experienced increases in segregation of both black homeowners from white households as well as white owners from black households.

Residential segregation: The mitigating effects of past military experience

This paper uses the case of military service to test the premise of the social contact theory-that minoritymajority social contact will lead to higher levels of racial tolerance and integration (Allport 1954, Robinson and Preston 1976; Sigelman and Welch 2001). As the only large-scale institution in which African Americans are over-represented and in which blacks and whites come into frequent and prolonged contact with one another, the military may be one of the most well-situated US environments in which to test social contact theory. In this paper we ask whether there are long term implications for race relations resulting from military service. Using restricted data from the fourth follow-up to NELS, this paper is the first to examine whether white veterans are more likely than white civilians to reside in racially integrated neighborhoods. We find that controlling for a variety of individual, household, and metropolitan level factors, prior military service is associated with residence in neighborhoods with fewer non-Hispanic whites and greater overall diversity. *DRAFT VERSION: PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR’S WRITTEN PERMISSION

Once the American Dream: Inner-Ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States edited by Bernadette Hanlon

Sharon Zukin’s Naked City takes us on an intriguing tour of several New York City neighborhoods, parks, and gardens to illustrate the ways in which culture patterns neighborhood development and urban life. The book is an insightful analysis of gentrification, and the role that culture and authenticity play in sparking the redevelopment of Williamsburg, Harlem, the Lower East Side, and Red Hook. In addition to these neighborhoods, there is an examination of how consumer-driven change has altered and influenced the developmental trajectory of Union Square Park, the World Trade Center redevelopment site, and community gardens scattered throughout the city. The theme that Zukin uses to unite these diverse landscapes is the quest for and competition among gentrifiers, city planners, political officials, long-term residents, real estate developers, and bloggers to define the authenticity of space, and thus who has the rights to certain places. For Zukin, urban transformation is driven largely by cultural consumption patterns. She argues that, “Our tastes as consumers – tastes for lattes and organic food, as well as for green spaces, boutiques, and farmers’ markets – now define the city” (27). In a postindustrial New York, the new tastes and preferences of the new middle class direct and guide development patterns. For the new middle class, it’s not lofts that attract the urban professionals to the central city, it’s Ann Taylor Loft. The consequence of these preferences and consumption patterns is the death of the authenticity of the past—the crime, the edge, and the spontaneous interactions that come from the unpredictability of events when people of different races and classes mix in places, such as the “old” Lower East Side. Middle class preferences for particular amenities, such as Starbucks, lead to a metropolis that is sanitized, predictable, and consumer oriented. The authentic city has become the authentic suburb, with Home Depot in the Bronx, IKEA in Red Hook, and Barnes & Noble abutting Union Square Park. The book duly acknowledges that cultural consumption patterns alone are not the sole driver of urban transformation. For instance, Zukin details how the city government’s failure to provide basic city services led to a reliance on corporate action, through Business Improvement Districts, to manage urban space when local budget shortfalls prevented adequate public services. Zukin tactfully incorporates New York’s political and economic forces within her cultural paradigm.