William A. V. Clark

Residential Preferences and Neighborhood Racial Segregation: A Test of the Schelling Segregation Model

The debate over the role of the forces that create the patterns of residential separation has identified neighborhood preferences as one of the explanatory variables, but although we possess some empirical data on the nature of neighborhood racial preferences, the theoretical contributions have received only limited empirical evaluation. Among the theoretical statements. Schelling’s model of the effects of small differences in preferences on residential patterns has provided a basic building block in our understanding of preferences, choices, and patterns. Several recent surveys of residential preferences provide the data with which to evaluate the underpinnings of the Schelling model. The preference/tolerance schedules that are derived from the data have a different functional form from that suggested by Schelling, but confirm the view that stable integrated equilibria are unlikely.

Residential preferences and residential choices in a multiethnic context

A study of the expressed preferences of four different ethnic groups in the Los Angeles metropolitan area shows strong desires for own-race combinations in the ethnicity of neighborhoods that individuals say they would choose when seeking a new residence. The results also show that Anglos are not the only group to practice “avoidance” of other racial/ethnic neighborhoods, although avoidance behavior by Anglos is the strongest. Because the issues of racial composition are socially sensitive, additional tests examined the relationship of preferences to behavior. Although many behaviors generally follow expressed preferences, members of households who expressed “no preference” also were found to largely choose own race neighborhoods. The results of this study suggest that the expressed preference for own race/own ethnicity, in combination with short-distance local moves, is likely to maintain present patterns of separation in U.S. metropolitan areas.

Life Cycle and Housing Adjustment as Explanations of Residential Mobility

The paper develops a typology of reasons for residential mobility and systematises the many survey analyses of reasons for moving. The relative importance of life cycle and housing adjustment mechanisms for explaining household relocations are evaluated. The analysis re-emphasises the role of housing adjustment in local moves and clarifies the theoretical links between stimulus (for move) and adjustment.

Residential segregation in American cities: a review and interpretation

Significant levels of separation between blacks and whites still exist in large American cities, and debate about the causes of that residential separation has been considerable. A balanced analysis of the factors that might explain residential segregation - economic status (affordability), social preferences, urban structure, and discrimination - suggests that no one factor can account for the patterns that have arisen in U.S. metropolitan areas. Empirical estimation of the impact of economic status suggests that 30–70 percent of racial separation is attributable to economic factors. However, economic factors do not act alone, but in association explanatory weight for present residential patterns. Survey evidence from both national and local studies shows that black households prefer neighborhoods that are half black and half white, while whites prefer neighborhoods ranging from 0 to 30 percent black.The debate about causes seems most polarized over the role of discrimination. Although comments in the literature often focus on the past use of racially restrictive covenants by state-regulated agencies and discriminatory acts by realtors and financial institutions, the documented individual cases of discrimination do not appear to be part of a massive collusion to deny housing opportunities to minorities. A review of the evidence from social science investigations demonstrates that there are multiple causes of racial residential separation in U.S. metropolitan areas.

Does commuting distance matter?: Commuting tolerance and residential change

This research uses a longitudinal data set of commuting behavior to test the nature and strength of the association between residential change and employment location. Do households minimize commuting distances when they change residences and what are the differences for one-worker and two-worker households? The analysis utilizes descriptive measures of distance and time to work for pre- and post-residential relocations and develops estimates from a probability model of work-place attraction. We extend earlier research on commuting distances by using a multimodal rather than a monocentric city, by specifically considering the commuting responses of two-worker households and by formally estimating a model of the response to commuting distances. The findings indicate that both one- and two-worker households with greater separation between workplace and residence make decreases in distance and time. Overall, as other studies have shown, women commute shorter distances and are more likely to minimize commuting after a move than are men. The probability model fits the likelihood of decreasing distance with greater separation and provides a more exact specification of the connection between residence and workplace than previous analyses of this relationship.

Tenure Changes in the Context of Micro-level Family and Macro-level Economic Shifts

Almost all the work to date on tenure changes, specifically the move from rent to own, has been derived from cross-sectional analysis of this important housing market decision. Economists have emphasised the investment nature of the housing consumption decision, while demographers and geographers have investigated tenure change in relationship to the demographic characteristics of the household. Now, the developing notions of life-course analysis and the availability of longer panel series enable us to investigate not just the demographic relatives of tenure change, but the critical aspects of timing as well. Specifically, many couples choose to buy and make the transition to a family within 2-3 years. We show also that tenure change is influenced by both spatial and temporal economic contexts.

Changing Jobs and Changing Houses: Mobility Outcomes of Employment Transitions

The life-course approach to residential mobility and migration recognizes a central role for a variety of demographic and economic triggers in the mobility process. Having a child, getting married, separated, or divorced, have all been identified as triggers that generate residential relocations. It is obvious that a job change can also be viewed as a stimulus for residential relocation, although until now the interconnection has been evaluated mainly for long-distance migratory moves rather than for its effects on residential mobility. In this analysis we use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to test the association between employment changes and residential relocation. We examine both the occurrence and the timing of residential moves triggered by employment transitions. We show that job changes increase the likelihood of residential relocation in the aggregate and for singles when we hold other & “triggers” constant. The results of the analysis of the timing of job changes and residential relocations indicate that temporal differences exist between households types. Overall, the results establish that job change is an important triggering process in residential relocation and emphasizes the interconnected nature of life-course events.

Housing Careers in the United States, 1968-93: Modelling the Sequencing of Housing States:

The research in this paper focuses on the housing career during a households life-course. The housing career is the sequence of housing states defined in terms of tenure and the quality/price of the dwellings that households occupy while they make parallel careers in family status and the job market. The research brings out, more than the literature on separate residential moves, that many households are in a stable housing state over long stretches of their life-course. Housing careers are notable for having a relatively simple structure and, in general, an upward trend in quality, price and tenure of the sequence of dwellings occupied. As expected, there is a close relationship between the type of housing career and a households income and income growth. Regional variation in tenure composition and the price of the stock have a strong influence on the development of the housing careers in different regions.

Residential Mobility and Neighbourhood Outcomes

When households move they obviously weigh both the quality of the house and the quality of the neighbourhood in their decision process. But, to the extent that housing quality and neighbourhood quality are inter-twined it is difficult to disentangle the extent to which households are more focused on one or another of these two components of the choice process. This paper uses both cross-tabulations of the neighbourhood choices, and logit models of the actual choices, to examine the relative roles of neighbourhoods and houses in the choice process. The research is focused on the question of the extent to which households trade up in house quality, or neighbourhood quality or both, as outcomes of residential mobility. The research measures neighbourhood quality in both socio-economic and environmental dimensions. The study shows that many households not only move up in housing quality, but quite consistently also make gains in neighbourhood quality, often independently of gains in housing quality. Not surprisingly, the largest gains in neighbourhood quality are related to households who make the city/suburban transition in their housing moves. The research adds another dimension to the growing and extensive literature on neighbourhoods and their role in residential choice.

Recent research on migration and mobility: A review and interpretation

This review of recent research in the general areas of migration and residential mobility grew out of seminars presented at the Free University during the winter term of 1981. The emphasis is on recent conceptual rather than descriptive analyses of migration (interregional and intraurban); the review is somewhat more detailed on intraurban migration (residential mobility). An extensive bibliography is appended. (TRRL)