Paul A. Jargowsky

Take the money and run : Economic segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas

Compared to residential segregation by race, economic segregation has received relatively little attention in recent empirical literature. Yet a heated debate has arisen concerning Wilsons (1987) hypothesis that increasing economic segregation among African Americans plays a role in the formation of urban ghettos. The author presents a methodological critique of the measure of economic segregation used by Massey and Eggers (1990) and he argues that their measure confounds changes in the income distribution with spatial changes. He develops a pure measure of economic segregation based on the correlation ratio and present findings for all U.S. metropolitan areas from 1970 to 1990. Economic segregation increased steadily for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics in the 1970s and 1980s, but the increases have been particularly large and widespread for Blacks and Hispanics in the 1980s. The author explores the causes of these changes in a reduced-form, fixed-effects model. Social distance and structural economic transformations affect economic segregation, but the large increases in economic segregation among minorities in the 1980s cannot be explained by the model. These rapid increases in economic segregation, especially in the context of recent, albeit small, declines in racial segregation, have important implications for urban policy, poverty policy, and the stability of urban communities

Ghetto poverty among blacks in the 1980s

This article uses 1990 census data to analyze the changes in ghetto poverty among blacks in the 1980s. Ghetto poverty among blacks increased, both in terms of the number of blacks living in ghettos and as a percentage of the black population. The black poor became increasingly isolated in ghettos, with nearly half of the black poor in metropolitan areas living in a ghetto neighborhood. The physical size of ghettos expanded rapidly, even in some metropolitan areas where the percentage of blacks living in ghettos declined. There were striking differences between regions, with the Midwest and Southwest having the largest increases in ghetto poverty while the eastern seaboard had declines.

Suburban development and economic segregation in the 1990s

ABSTRACT: Suburbanization is changing the face of urban America. A common claim is that suburban sprawl has contributed to increasing levels of economic segregation, but few studies have directly tested this hypothesis. Using U.S. Census data for 1990 and 2000, this paper examines the trends in and the relationship between suburban development patterns and economic segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas. We find that economic segregation, as measured by the Neighborhood Sorting Index (NSI), declined during the 1990s, reversing the earlier trend. However, results from cross-sectional and fixed-effects regression models at the metropolitan level suggest that suburbanization, as measured by five different indicators, was a countervailing influence during the decade. Metropolitan areas that were suburbanizing more rapidly had smaller declines in economic segregation than comparable metropolitan areas.

The “Underclass” Revisited: A Social Problem in Decline

ABSTRACT: In the early 1980s, widespread concern over the social conditions of inner-city neighborhoods gave rise to a literature on the “underclass.” A team of researchers led by Isabelle Sawhill, then of the Urban Institute, crafted a controversial operational definition of the underclass and found a rapid rise in the number of neighborhoods classifying as underclass in the 1970s and, to a lesser extent, in the 1980s ( Mincy and Wiener 1993; Ricketts and Mincy 1990; Ricketts and Sawhill 1988). The increasing prevalence of the underclass was linked to the increasing spatial concentration of poverty ( Wilson 1987). However, the concentration of poverty decreased in the 1990s ( Jargowsky 2003; Kingsley and Pettit 2003). This article reexamines the underclass measure in light of the change in concentrated poverty and finds a dramatic decline in the number of underclass neighborhoods in the 1990s.

Immigrants and Neighbourhoods of Concentrated Poverty: Assimilation or Stagnation?

Immigrants in the United States often live, at least for a time, in neighbourhoods that have high concentrations of fellow immigrants. Typically, these neighbourhoods also have high poverty levels and are located near concentrations of the native-born poor. Conventional wisdom is that living in extremely poor neighbourhoods leads to ‘concentration effects’ that exacerbate the problems of poverty and limit economic opportunity. While immigrants are not immune to the problems of crime, gangs, dilapidated housing and failing schools associated with high-poverty neighbourhoods, it has been argued that immigrant neighbourhoods provide advantages as well. These include the creation of parallel institutions, vernacular information networks and familiar cultural practices. The analyses presented here provide some support for this notion, by showing immigrants’ progress from higher- to lower-poverty neighbourhoods over time. Yet Mexican immigrants do not transition nearly as rapidly, providing support for the segmented assimilation hypothesis.

Cause or Consequence? Suburbanization and Crime in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Inner-city crime is a motivating factor for middle-class flight. Therefore, crime is a cause of suburbanization. Movement of the middle and upper classes to the suburbs, in turn, isolates the poor in central-city ghettos and barrios. Sociologists and criminologists have argued that the concentration of poverty creates an environment within which criminal behavior becomes normative, leading impressionable youth to adopt criminal lifestyles. Moreover, from the perspective of routine activity theory, the deterioration of social capital in high-poverty areas reduces the capacity for guardianship. Therefore, suburbanization may also cause crime. The authors argue that prior research has not distinguished between the causal and compositional effects of suburbanization on crime. They show that the causal component can be identified by linking metropolitan-level crime rates, rather than central-city crime rates, to measures of suburbanization. Using Uniform Crime Reports and census data from 2000, they find a positive relationship between suburbanization and metropolitan crime.

BEYOND THE STREET CORNER: THE HIDDEN DIVERSITY OF HIGH-POVERTY NEIGHBORHOODS

The widely reported social pathologies of urban ghettos, barrios, and other slum areas have played a prominent role in the backlash against Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other social programs. The policy debate, however, has been fueled by a series of stereotypes about the characteristics of the residents of such neighborhoods. This article complements existing ethnographic research on high-poverty neighborhoods by examining social and economic data from the 1990 Census on all neighborhoods in U.S. metropolitan areas. High-poverty areas are found to contain a surprising amount of social and economic diversity. Although some residents clearly engage in “underclass” lifestyles, many of their neighbors are not public-assistance recipients and do participate in the labor market, albeit in lower-skill occupations and for fewer hours and lower wages. Other similarities and differences between high-poverty areas and other neighborhoods are explored, leading to a richer understanding of the nature o...

The GINI coefficient and segregation on a continuous variable

Purpose – The Gini coefficient is a widely used measure of income inequality. It has also been used as a segregation measure, but only in the case of binary variables, for example race or gender. We develop a general version of the Gini Segregation Index (Gs) that can accommodate either continuous or binary variables, and discuss its relationship to existing measures. Methodology – The Gini Index of Segregation is developed graphically and derived mathematically, illustrating the relationship between Ginis use in segregation and inequality applications. Findings – Using the Public Use Microdata Sample for 25 U.S. metropolitan areas from the 2000 Census, we illustrate the calculation of the index and show that it is highly correlated with an existing measure of economic segregation. Originality – This paper develops and illustrates a measure of segregation for continuous variables, a task for which there are few alternative measures.

Response to George C. Galster’s “Consequences From the Redistribution of Urban Poverty During the 1990s: A Cautionary Tale”:

Galster proposes that the reductions in the concentration of poverty in the United States in the 1990s may have unexpected negative consequences because of nonlinearities in the effect of neighborhood poverty on individual outcomes. Although the hypothesized effect is a theoretical possibility, there is far too much uncertainty in the functional form of neighborhood effects to have any confidence in Galster’s simulations based on coefficients from existing studies. Moreover, the hypothesized effects would apply to children and materialize over time, assuming that all else was equal. Yet, declining neighborhood poverty benefits both adults and children in myriad ways, so that the small hypothesized negative effects on the rates of various social problems, if they in fact exist, are likely to be swamped by the positive direct effects on children and their parents.

Rethinking Coup Risk: Rural Coalitions and Coup-Proofing in Sub-Saharan Africa

Military interventions continue to be prevalent in Africa. In the 21st century alone, 14 coups have been successfully staged. Whereas most studies of coup risk examine how militaries are organized or what structural conditions are associated with coups, we take a novel approach. We explore how coalition politics relate to coup risk. It has long been observed that regimes try to hold power by buying off urban consumers. We argue that focusing on urban consumers actually makes regimes more prone to military intervention. Instead, leaders who ally with established rural elites are more effective at thwarting coups. To test our hypothesis, we develop a unique data set of rural political strategies, coding regimes in 44 sub-Saharan countries from 1960 to 2000. Using a continuous-time Cox proportional hazards regression model, we find a robust correlation between policies supportive of rural elites and lower coup risk.