How population structure shapes neighborhood segregation

Participatory Systems Thinking to Elucidate Drivers of Food Access and Diet Disparities among Minoritized Urban Populations

The purpose of this study was to use participatory systems thinking to develop a dynamic conceptual framework of racial/ethnic and other intersecting disparities (e.g., income) in food access and diet in Philadelphia and to identify policy levers to address these disparities. We conducted three group model building workshops, each consisting of a series of scripted activities. Key artifacts or outputs included qualitative system maps, or causal loop diagrams, identifying the variables, relationships, and feedback loops that drive diet disparities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We used semi-structured methods informed by inductive thematic analysis and network measures to synthesize findings into a single causal loop diagram. There were twenty-nine participants with differing vantages and expertise in Philadelphia's food system, broadly representing the policy, community, and research domains. In the synthesis model, participants identified 14 reinforcing feedback loops and one balancing feedback loop that drive diet and food access disparities in Philadelphia. The most highly connected variables were upstream factors, including those related to racism (e.g., residential segregation) and community power (e.g., community land control). Consistent with existing frameworks, addressing disparities will require a focus on upstream social determinants. However, existing frameworks should be adapted to emphasize and disrupt the interdependent, reinforcing feedback loops that maintain and exacerbate disparities in fundamental social causes. Our findings suggest that promising policies include those that empower minoritized communities, address socioeconomic inequities, improve community land control, and increase access to affordable, healthy, and culturally meaningful foods.

Proximate sources of growth in neighborhood income segregation: Class-selective migration versus in situ change

The growth in residential segregation by income implies an increase over time in the neighborhood income gap between rich and poor households. This analysis uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, in concert with tract-level decennial U.S. census data, to quantify the relative contribution of two proximate sources of this increase: change in the income-class-selectivity of inter-neighborhood migrants and change in the class difference in neighborhood income among non-migrants, or in situ change. Change in the income-class-selectivity of migrants is likely to be particularly important for explaining the increase in the neighborhood income gap among blacks to the extent that declining housing discrimination enables middle-class blacks to access higher-income neighborhoods. Decomposition of the change between 1980 and 1990 in the class difference in neighborhood income shows that, among blacks, the increase in the neighborhood income gap between rich and poor persons is attributable in large measure to a change in migrant selectivity. An increase in the class difference in average income among the destination neighborhoods of short-distance migrants is a particularly important source of the growth in the class difference in neighborhood income among blacks. In contrast, among whites, the bulk of the increase in the class difference in neighborhood income is attributable to a divergence in neighborhood income between rich and poor non-migrants.

The impact of demographic change in the balance between formal and informal old-age care in Spain. Results from a mixed microsimulation–agent-based model

Changes in population and family structures are altering the provision of care for dependent older people. In Southern European countries like Spain, such care is still largely provided by family, typically spouses and adult daughters. However, an increasing proportion of women have entered the labour force, thereby affecting their availability. To study the demand and supply balance of informal care and to quantify the need for formal care when there is a deficit, we have developed a mixed microsimulation–agent-based model (ABM). Based on nuptiality, fertility and mortality levels of cohorts born at ten-year intervals between 1908 and 1968, the model starts with a microsimulation of the lifecycle of individuals and their close relatives until death. The ABM then determines the amount of time available or needed to care for family members, starting from age 50. Estimates are derived from Spanish survey data on employment, disability and time of care received. Surprisingly, results show that the family care deficit was greater in the older cohorts due to higher mortality and thus a greater impact of widowhood. However, for future elderly persons, we foresee that persistent below-replacement fertility and, paradoxically, the prolongation of the lifespan of couples will increase the demand for formal care as there will be more couples with both members incapacitated but without children to take care of them.

The Longitudinal Revolution: Sociological research at the 50-year milestone of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics

The U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018. Initially designed to assess the nation's progress in combatting poverty, PSID's scope broadened quickly to a variety of topics and fields of inquiry. To date, sociologists are the second-most frequent users of PSID data after economists. Here, we describe the ways in which PSID's history reflects shifts in social science scholarship and funding priorities over half a century, take stock of the most important sociological breakthroughs it facilitated, in particular those relying on the longitudinal structure of the data, and critically assess the unique advantages and limitations of the PSID and surveys like it for today's sociological scholarship.

Choice Set Formation in Residential Mobility and Its Implications for Segregation Dynamics

We develop and estimate a statistical model of neighborhood choice that draws on insights from cognitive science and decision theory as well as qualitative studies of housing search. The model allows for a sequential decision process and the possibility that people consider a small and selective subset of all potential destinations. When combined with data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, our model reveals that affordability constraints and households' tendency toward short-distance moves lead blacks and Hispanics to have racially stratified choice sets in which their own group is disproportionately represented. We use an agent-based model to assess how racially stratified choice sets contribute to segregation outcomes. Our results show that cognitive decision strategies can amplify patterns of segregation and inequality.

Is geography destiny? Disrupting the relationship between segregation and neighbohrood outcomes

Considerable research has shown that, in the cross-section, segregation is associated with detrimental neighborhood outcomes for blacks and improved neighborhood outcomes for whites. However, it is unclear whether early-life experiences of segregation shape later-life neighborhood outcomes, whether this association persists for those who migrate out of the metropolitan areas in which they grew up, and how these relationships differ for blacks and whites. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1979 to 2013, we find that the level of segregation experienced during adolescence is associated with significantly worse neighborhood outcomes in adulthood for blacks. However, migrating out of the metropolitan area an individual grew up in substantially moderates these relationships. In contrast, adolescent segregation is associated with improved, or not significantly different, neighborhood outcomes in adulthood for whites. These findings have important implications for theorizing about the mechanisms linking segregation and neighborhood outcomes and for considering potential means of assuaging racial disparities in harmful neighborhood exposures.

Neighborhood change from the bottom Up: What are the determinants of social distance between new and prior residents?

An important source of neighborhood change occurs when there is a turnover in the housing unit due to residential mobility and the new residents differ from the prior residents based on socio-demographic characteristics (what we term social distance). Nonetheless, research has typically not asked which characteristics explain transitions with higher social distance based on a number of demographic dimensions. We explore this question using American Housing Survey data from 1985 to 2007, and focus on instances in which the prior household moved out and is replaced by a new household. We focus on four key characteristics for explaining this social distance: the type of housing unit, the age of the housing unit, the length of residence of the exiting household, and the crime and social disorder in the neighborhood. We find that transitions in the oldest housing units and for the longest tenured residents result in the greatest amount of social distance between new and prior residents, implying that these transitions are particularly important for fostering neighborhood socio-demographic change. The results imply micro-mechanisms at the household level that might help explain net change at the neighborhood level.

Ethnicity and wealth: The dynamics of dual segregation

Creating inclusive cities requires meaningful responses to inequality and segregation. We build an agent-based model of interactions between wealth and ethnicity of agents to investigate ‘dual’ segregations—due to ethnicity and due to wealth. As agents are initially allowed to move into neighbourhoods they cannot afford, we find a regime where there is marginal increase in both wealth segregation and ethnic segregation. However, as more agents are progressively allowed entry into unaffordable neighbourhoods, we find that both wealth and ethnic segregations undergo sharp, non-linear transformations, but in opposite directions—wealth segregation shows a dramatic decline, while ethnic segregation an equally sharp upsurge. We argue that the decrease in wealth segregation does not merely accompany, but actually drives the increase in ethnic segregation. Essentially, as agents are progressively allowed into neighbourhoods in contravention of affordability, they create wealth configurations that enable a sharp decline in wealth segregation, which at the same time allow co-ethnics to spatially congregate despite differences in wealth, resulting in the abrupt worsening of ethnic segregation.

The interplay of race, socioeconomic status and neighborhood residence upon birth outcomes in a high black infant mortality community

This study examined the interrelationship of race and socioeconomic status (SES) upon infant birthweight at the individual and neighborhood levels within a Midwestern US county marked by high Black infant mortality. The study conducted a multi-level analysis utilizing individual birth records and census tract datasets from 2010, linked through a spatial join with ArcGIS 10.0. The maternal population of 2861 Black and White women delivering infants in 2010, residing in 57 census tracts within the county, constituted the study samples. The main outcome was infant birthweight. The predictors, race and SES were dichotomized into Black and White, low-SES and higher-SES, at both the individual and census tract levels. A two-part Bayesian model demonstrated that individual-level race and SES were more influential birthweight predictors than community-level factors. Specifically, Black women had 1.6 higher odds of delivering a low birthweight (LBW) infant than White women, and low-SES women had 1.7 higher odds of delivering a LBW infant than higher-SES women. Moderate support was found for a three-way interaction between individual-level race, SES and community-level race, such that Black women achieved equity with White women (4.0% Black LBW and 4.1% White LBW) when they each had higher-SES and lived in a racially congruous neighborhood (e.g., Black women lived in disproportionately Black neighborhood and White women lived in disproportionately White neighborhood). In sharp contrast, Black women with higher-SES who lived in a racially incongruous neighborhood (e.g., disproportionately White) had the worst outcomes (14.5% LBW). Demonstrating the layered influence of personal and community circumstances upon health, in a community with substantial racial disparities, personal race and SES independently contribute to birth outcomes, while environmental context, specifically neighborhood racial congruity, is associated with mitigated health risk.

An agent-based simulation of persistent inequalities in health behavior: Understanding the interdependent roles of segregation, clustering, and social influence

Health inequalities are conspicuously persistent through time and often durable even in spite of interventions. In this study, I use agent-based simulation models (ABMs) to understand how the complex interrelationships between residential segregation, social network formation, group-level preferences, and social influence may contribute to this persistence. I use a more-stylized ABM, Bubblegum Village (BV), to understand how initial inequalities in bubblegum-chewing behaviors either endure, increase, or decrease over time given group-level differences in preferences, neighborhood-level barriers or facilitators of bubblegum chewing (e.g., access to bubblegum shops), and agents' preferences for segregation, homophily, and clustering (i.e., the 'tightness' of social networks). I further use BV to understand whether segregation and social network characteristics impact whether the effects of a bubblegum-reduction intervention that is very effective in the short term are durable over time, as well as to identify intervention strategies to reduce attenuation of the intervention effects. In addition to BV, I also present results from an ABM based on the distribution and social characteristics of the population in Philadelphia, PA. This model explores similar questions to BV, but examines racial/ethnic inequalities in soda consumption based on agents' social characteristics and baseline soda consumption probabilities informed by the 2007-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Collectively, the models suggest that residential segregation is a fundamental process for the production and persistence of health inequalities. The other major conclusion of the study is that, for behaviors that are subject to social influence and that cluster within social groups, interventions that are randomly-targeted to individuals with 'bad' behaviors will likely experience a large degree of recidivism to pre-intervention behaviors. In contrast, interventions that target multiple members of the same network, as well as multilevel interventions that include a neighborhood-level component, can reduce recidivism.

The Contributions of Places to Metropolitan Ethnoracial Diversity and Segregation: Decomposing Change Across Space and Time

Although the trend toward greater ethnoracial diversity in the United States has been documented at a variety of geographic scales, most research tracks diversity one scale at a time. Our study bridges scales, asking how the diversity and segregation patterns of metropolitan areas are influenced by shifts in the racial/ethnic composition of their constituent places. Drawing on 1980-2010 decennial census data, we use a new visual tool to compare the distributions of place diversity for 50 U.S. metro areas over three decades. We also undertake a decomposition analysis of segregation within these areas to evaluate hypotheses about the roles of different types of places in ethnoracial change. The decomposition indicates that although principal cities continue to shape the overall diversity of metro areas, their relative impact has declined since 1980. Inner suburbs have experienced substantial increases in diversity during the same period. Places with large white majorities now contribute more to overall metropolitan diversity than in the past. In contrast, majority black and majority Hispanic places contribute less to metropolitan diversity than in the past. The complexity of the patterns we observe is underscored through an inspection of two featured metropolises: Chicago and Dallas.

Forced Displacement From Rental Housing: Prevalence and Neighborhood Consequences

Drawing on novel survey data of Milwaukee renters, this study documents the prevalence of involuntary displacement from housing and estimates its consequences for neighborhood selection. More than one in eight Milwaukee renters experienced an eviction or other kind of forced move in the previous two years. Multivariate analyses suggest that renters who experienced a forced move relocate to poorer and higher-crime neighborhoods than those who move under less-demanding circumstances. By providing evidence implying that involuntary displacement is a critical yet overlooked mechanism of neighborhood inequality, this study helps to clarify why some city dwellers live in much worse neighborhoods than their peers.

Birds of a Feather: Social Bases of Neighborhood Formation in Newark, New Jersey, 1880

This study examines the bases of residential segregation in a late nineteenth century American city, recognizing the strong tendency toward homophily within neighborhoods. Our primary question is how ethnicity, social class, nativity, and family composition affect where people live. Segregation is usually studied one dimension at a time, but these social differences are interrelated, and thus a multivariate approach is needed to understand their effects. We find that ethnicity is the main basis of local residential sorting, while occupational standing and, to a lesser degree, family life cycle and nativity also are significant. A second concern is the geographic scale of neighborhoods: in this study, the geographic area within which the characteristics of potential neighbors matter in locational outcomes of individuals. Studies of segregation typically use a single spatial scale, often one determined by the availability of administrative data. We take advantage of a unique data set containing the address and geo-referenced location of every resident. We conclude that it is the most local scale that offers the best prediction of people's similarity to their neighbors. Adding information at larger scales minimally improves prediction of the person's location. The 1880 neighborhoods of Newark, New Jersey, were formed as individuals located themselves among similar neighbors on a single street segment.

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics To Analyze Housing Decisions, Dynamics, and Effects

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is the world's longest running household panel survey. It started in 1968 and has followed the same families-and their descendants-for nearly 50 years. PSID was conducted annually from 1968 through 1997 and has been conducted biennially since 1997. As of 2015, 39 waves of data have been collected. In 2015, interviews were completed with more than 9,000 households and information was collected on about 25,000 household members. PSID has achieved high wave-to-wave response rates throughout most of its history. Since the beginning of the study, detailed information has been collected on family composition, income, assets and debt, public program participation, and housing. At the beginning of the recent housing crisis, PSID began collecting information about mortgage distress and foreclosure activity. PSID currently includes several major supplemental studies. The Child Development Supplement and the Transition into Adulthood Supplement collect detailed information about behavior and outcomes among children and young adults in PSID families, such as educational achievement, health, time use, family formation, and housing-related decisions among young adults. PSID data are publicly available free of charge to researchers; some data available only under contract to qualified researchers allow linkage with various administrative databases and include information such as census tract and block of residence that can be used to describe neighborhood characteristics. PSID data have been widely used to study topics of major interest to Cityscape readers, including housing decisionmaking, housing expenditures and financing, residential mobility and migration, and the effects of neighborhood characteristics on a variety of measures of child and family well-being. This article provides an overview of PSID and its housing- and neighborhood-related measures. We briefly describe studies using PSID on housing-related topics. Finally, we point readers to resources needed to begin working with PSID data.