Spatial Foundations of Inequality: a Conceptual Model and Empirical Overview.” RSF: the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 3(2): 1–33
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Spatial Foundations of an em Pirical overview Inequality: A Conceptual Model and Empirical Overview GeorGe Galster and Patrick s harkey Inequalities among individuals and house- causal estimates of the impact of space on in- holds in achieved socioeconomic status (in- dividual socioeconomic outcomes. We do not come, wealth, and so on) in the United States advance new empirical research but rather a have reached levels not observed for almost a framing of the issues that will be sufficiently century. We believe that a corresponding evo- robust and comprehensive to permit integra- lution of geographic inequalities in socioeco- tion of all the papers in this issue as illustra- nomic, environmental, institutional, and po- tions and amplifications. Moreover, we hope litical domains both reflect and—more that our model will be useful in generating hy- importantly from our perspective—contribute potheses and thereby stimulating further re- to these inequalities across individuals.1 It is search on this crucial topic. this belief that motivated the Russell Sage In overview, our conceptual model con- Foundation to devote an issue of RSF: The Rus- tends that the variations in geographic context sell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sci- across multiple scales (neighborhood, jurisdic- ences to this topic. tion, metropolitan region)—what we call spa- Our primary purpose in this introductory tial opportunity structure—affects the socioeco- article is to develop a holistic, multilevel con- nomic outcomes that individuals can achieve ceptual model for comprehending how space in two ways by altering the payoffs that will be can be considered a foundation of U.S. socio- gained from the attributes individuals have economic inequality. Our secondary aim is to during any given period and the bundle of at- provide a synthetic review of the evidence on tributes that individuals will acquire (both pas- various dimensions of inequality of opportu- sively and actively) during their lifetimes. nity and outcomes in America, and the empir- In the first mechanism, the spatial oppor- ical scholarly literature that provides plausibly tunity structure serves as a mediating factor, George Galster is Clarence Hilberry Professor of Urban Affairs at Wayne State University.Patrick Sharkey is professor of sociology at New York University. © 2017 Russell Sage Foundation. Galster, George, and Patrick Sharkey. 2017. “Spatial Foundations of Inequality: A Conceptual Model and Empirical Overview.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 3(2): 1–33. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2017.3.2.01. The authors thank Maren Toft for her comments on an earlier draft and Sylvia Tatman-Burruss for research assistance. Participants at the Russell Sage Foundation conference “Spatial Foundations of Inequality” and two anonymous reviewers provided valuable feedback on early drafts of this article. Direct correspondence to: George Galster at [email protected], Department of Urban Stud- ies and Planning, Room 3198, Faculty- Administration Building, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202; and Patrick Sharkey at [email protected], Department of Sociology, New York University, 295 Lafayette St., Room 4102, New York, NY 10012. 1. We are not the first to make such claims, of course. A similar theme is advanced in numerous seminal works (for example, Wilson 1987; Jencks and Mayer 1990; Brooks- Gunn et al. 1993; Briggs 1995; Brooks- Gunn, Duncan, and Aber 1997). 2 sPatial foundations of inequality translating a given bundle of individual attri- tion across space of different segments of the butes into achieved status depending on geog- population as classified by racial- ethnic back- raphy of the individual’s residence, work, and ground and income, economic opportunities, routine activity spaces. In the second mecha- environmental hazards, and violence. nism, the spatial opportunity structure serves as a modifying factor affecting the bundle of Segregation by Economic Status and attributes that individuals develop over time Race- Ethnicity in three ways. First, it directly influences the Trends in household income and wealth in- attributes over which individuals may exercise equality, which have been well documented in little or no volition, such as exposure to envi- academic work and the popular press, are mir- ronmental pollutants or violence. Second, it rored by trends in the degree to which low- and directly influences the attributes over which high- income families live apart from each they exercise considerable volition by shaping other, as measured by economic segregation what they perceive is the most desirable, fea- (Bischoff and Reardon 2014; Jargowsky 1996, sible option. It does so by influencing what in- 2003, 2015; Reardon and Bischoff 2011, 2016; formation about the individual’s options is Watson 2009). No matter how economic segre- provided, what the information objectively in- gation is measured, trends show steady growth dicates about payoffs from these options, and in the degree of segregation by income since how the individual subjectively evaluates the the 1970s. Sean Reardon and Kendra Bischoff information. These decisions early in life lead (2016) use a straightforward measure of the people into various path- dependent trajecto- proportion of families living in neighborhoods ries of achieved socioeconomic status and sub- that have median income at least 50 percent sequent life decisions, in cumulatively rein- above or 50 percent below the metropolitan forcing processes that can stretch across area median to document changes in the de- lifetimes and generations. Third, in the case of gree to which American families have begun children and youth, the spatial opportunity to sort into separate communities stratified by structure indirectly influences their attributes economic status. They find that, in 1970, about through induced changes in the resources, be- 15 percent lived in neighborhoods that were haviors, and attitudes of their caregivers. either extremely affluent or extremely poor. By 2012, that figure had risen to 34 percent. InequalItIes In the spatIal Although the growth of affluent neighbor- OppOrtunIty structure hoods is an important contributor to the rise The first basic claim that motivates this issue of economic segregation (Reardon and Bischoff is that various dimensions of inequality are or- 2011), much of the concern about the issue ganized in space. The spatial organization of stems from the long- term rise of concentrated inequality is, in part, simply a manifestation poverty. Paul Jargowsky (2003, 2015) docu- of inequality occurring at the level of individu- ments trends in the proportion of all Ameri- als, families, and groups that is mapped on to cans and poor Americans living in neighbor- spaces. However, spatial inequality also is due hoods with a poverty rate of 40 percent or to intentional efforts to organize physical greater in a series of reports, showing substan- space in ways that maintain or reinforce in- tial growth in concentrated poverty from 1970 equality (Dreier, Mollenkopf, and Swanstrom to 1990, a decline of high- poverty neighbor- 2001). As a result of both sets of processes, vari- hoods in the 1990s, and a subsequent increase ation is tremendous in economic status, labor in concentrated poverty from 2000 to the most market opportunities, core institutions such recent years in which data were available (from as schools, environmental hazards, and social 2009 through 2013). Since 2000, the number of networks across city blocks, neighborhoods, extreme poverty neighborhoods has risen by cities and towns, metropolitan areas, and re- more than 75 percent and the number of Amer- gions. We begin with a descriptive portrait of icans living in such neighborhoods by more several different dimensions of the spatial op- than 90 percent, from 7.2 million to 13.8 mil- portunity structure, focusing on the distribu- lion (Jargowsky 2015). rsf: the russell sage foundation journal of the social sciences an em Pirical overview 3 Economic inequality in American neighbor- ments than other groups even after account- hoods overlaps with persistent racial and eth- ing for group differences in economic status. nic inequality. Residential segregation of Afri- The gaps are most notable when blacks and can Americans from Anglo Americans is most whites are compared. In all urban areas commonly measured two ways: the dissimilar- across the country, Patrick Sharkey (2014) ity index, which captures the comparative finds that black families with household in- evenness of the overall distribution of two ra- come of $100,000 or more live in and are sur- cial or ethnic groups across the neighborhoods rounded by neighborhoods with higher levels of a city or metropolitan area, and the isolation of disadvantage than white families with in- index, which captures the degree to which come of $30,000 or less (see also Logan 2011; members of a particular racial or ethnic group Reardon, Fox, and Townsend 2015). live in neighborhoods occupied by members of the same group.2 According to both mea- Schools and School Districts sures, the segregation of blacks from whites The research described in the previous section continues to be extremely high in many urban indicates that inequality in residential environ- areas, although black- white segregation has ments (especially in its economic composi- declined steadily since 1970 (Glaeser and Vig- tion) has been growing for all American fami- dor 2012; Logan and Stults 2011; Logan, Stults, lies. These