Economic and Social Mobility New Directions for Data, Research, and Policy (2025) / Chapter Skim
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3 Space and Place
3 Space and Place
Pages 74-103
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From page 74... ...
. Even within the same commuting zones and counties, there is wide variation across Census tracts in children's chances of upward mobility (Chetty et al., 2018)
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From page 75... ...
SPACE AND MOBILITY The resurgence of interest in the role of residential environments in influencing economic and social mobility is often traced back to The Truly Disadvantaged, in which William Julius Wilson (1987) described how a set of economic, demographic, and social forces had led to a new form of concentrated poverty that was most pronounced in Black neighborhoods across U.S.
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From page 76... ...
. While much of the early quantitative research on the impact of residential environments struggled to overcome the methodological challenges associated with nonrandom selection into neighborhoods and cities, recent evidence has led to something close to a consensus in support of the claim that residential environments can have a causal impact on economic mobility and on other intermediate outcomes related to mobility -- most notably academic achievement, cognitive skill development, and health (Sharkey & Faber, 2014)
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From page 77... ...
Similarly, a 40-year follow-up of the Chicago Gautreaux program -- a desegregation remedy that helped Black families in public housing move to predominantly White neighborhoods across the Chicago metropolitan area -- builds on and confirms earlier evidence (e.g., DeLuca et al., 2010) that the program increased children's lifetime earnings, employment, and wealth, supporting upward mobility (Chyn et al., 2023)
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From page 78... ...
In this section we review evidence at the neighborhood level that points to schools, community violence, and local social networks as examples of central mechanisms linking the local residential environment with economic and social mobility. This review is not designed to be exhaustive, as there is evidence for numerous additional pathways by which the residential environment may affect upward mobility through, for instance, children's exposure to environmental toxins (Mohai et al., 2009; Muller et al., 2018)
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From page 79... ...
. While we focus on key factors through which scholars believe place has effects on economic and social outcomes, we emphasize that more research is needed, specifically research that directly identifies how these mechanisms work to produce outcomes that foster upward mobility by improving human and social capital.
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From page 80... ...
Through increases in school quality and the funding ushered in by desegregation, Black children had higher educational attainment, lower rates of incarceration, reduced risk of poverty, and higher lifetime earnings, signaling substantial upward mobility. This literature provides support for the idea that schools are a central mechanism through which the residential environment affects children's academic and developmental trajectories.
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From page 81... ...
To address this problem, Sharkey (2010) exploited exogenous variation in the timing of children's interview assessments and local homicides to identify the effect of extreme local violence on children's performance on cognitive skills assessments.
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From page 82... ...
(2014a) found that rates of single parenthood and high school dropout, prevalence of violent crime, measures of social capital, overall economic inequality within commuting zones, and the degree of racial and economic segregation were linked with economic mobility.
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From page 83... ...
Similarly, Berger and Engzell (2022) use "data on local labor markets in the United States to document that automation significantly has reduced the chances for upward mobility among children born in low-income families in the early 1980s" (p.
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From page 84... ...
found that Black Americans born in the 1980s had lower rates of upward mobility in commuting zones that absorbed a larger share of Black Americans decades earlier. She points to spending on police, rates of incarceration, and rising violence as potential explanations for the findings.
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From page 85... ...
. For example, social isolation and avoidance of risky peers may protect youth from violence in the near term but may also limit the building of human and social capital, which can in turn limit their upward mobility and risk locking them in disadvantaged communities over the long term (Chan Tack & Small, 2017; DeLuca et al., 2024; Edin et al., 2015)
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From page 86... ...
The section concludes by discussing a third approach to social policy, which involves curtailing or abolishing existing programs and policies that may be amplifying spatial inequality. Evidence from Housing Mobility Programs Policies for assisting low-income households in relocating to less-segregated, lowerpoverty neighborhoods with housing voucher subsidies -- known as housing mobility programs -- have been implemented for nearly 50 years.
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From page 87... ...
. A housing mobility program developed in Baltimore as a result of a different desegregation program also showed benefits to low-income Black families, including long-term moves to higher-opportunity, less-segregated communities and moderate gains in children's test scores (DeLuca & Rosenblatt, 2017; DeLuca et al., 2016)
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From page 88... ...
One set of programs focuses on providing job experiences and training along with supplemental supports to residents of disadvantaged communities. The New Hope program, implemented in Milwaukee during the mid-1990s, stands out as a unique experiment in addressing low-wage labor market challenges and promoting economic mobility (Duncan et al., 2009)
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From page 89... ...
Unlike conventional welfare-to-work initiatives, Jobs Plus adopted a targeted approach, focusing on residents living in public housing developments across five diverse cities: Baltimore, Chattanooga, Dayton, Los Angeles, and St. Paul (Bloom & Riccio, 2005)
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From page 90... ...
While the interventions discussed thus far focus primarily on poverty reduction, labor market prospects, and job creation in disadvantaged neighborhoods, it is crucial to acknowledge that economic opportunity is just one factor influencing economic mobility. A broader range of place-based interventions has been implemented to address various challenges within communities, including school quality, crime reduction, and community health (Braga, 2005; Dobbie & Fryer, 2011; Heller, 2014; Heller et al., 2013; H
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From page 91... ...
Other notable policy measures include inclusionary zoning, acquisition of housing in high-opportunity areas by public housing authorities, and efforts to eliminate vacant lots and abandoned homes in neighborhoods. Although targeted interventions aimed at neighborhood revitalization have yielded mixed results, research on large-scale economic transformations suggest that substantial investments capable of altering the local economic landscape can have lasting positive effects on residents.
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From page 92... ...
Interventions Amplifying Spatial Inequality Programs that invest in disadvantaged areas and those that support moving out of poor neighborhoods remain the most prominent approaches to addressing the link between place and upward mobility. However, some policies and programs active in the United States have the opposite effect: they constrain economic mobility and amplify spatial inequality.
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From page 93... ...
Altering or ending existing housing and land use policies that exacerbate inequality, and instead implementing programs that confront inequality, would represent an initial step in an urban policy agenda designed to reduce neighborhood inequality. A FORWARD-LOOKING SCIENCE OF SPACE AND MOBILITY For a long period of time, quantitative academic research on the link between space and upward mobility centered on the question of whether neighborhoods matter (Sharkey & Faber, 2014)
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From page 94... ...
First, more convincing evidence is needed on the mechanisms underlying the link between space and upward mobility. Existing research has demonstrated that schooling, public funding, community violence, social capital, and racial and economic segregation are all strongly associated with economic mobility.
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From page 95... ...
Yet both approaches are necessary to understand social opportunity and design effective policies for promoting upward mobility. Qualitative research has already been enormously valuable for illuminating the mechanisms by which individuals' environments influence their decision-making about where to live, how to stay safe, and how to get ahead (DeLuca et al., 2019; Edin et al., 2023; Harding, 2010; Harvey et al., 2020; Jones, 2009)
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From page 96... ...
Comprehensive data on where public and private investment flows is a starting point for establishing the relationship between funding and economic and social mobility. Looking beyond streams of funding, data on community-level social processes, institutions, political power, social networks, and other forms of social capital are crucial to developing a more complete accounting of the explanations for spatial inequality and economic and social mobility.
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From page 97... ...
More broadly, the vast literature on investments in places -- such as comprehensive community development initiatives -- has not provided clear, causal evidence on the most effective ways to invest in communities or entire cities and regions, or how policymakers can or even whether they should intervene in places to improve economic and social mobility. Fifth, while policy discussions on reducing spatial inequality typically focus on two approaches -- moving people out of or investing in disadvantaged places -- the committee argues for an expansion of this debate to includes approaches to end or scale back existing interventions that amplify spatial inequality, as described above.
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From page 98... ...
SUMMARY, KEY CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS While much of the early quantitative research on the impact of residential environments struggled to overcome the methodological challenges associated with nonrandom selection into neighborhoods and cities, recent evidence has led to something close to a consensus in support of the claim that residential environments can have a causal impact on economic and social mobility and intermediate outcomes related to mobility -- most notably academic achievement, cognitive skill development, and physical and mental health. Increasing access to geocoded data, improved tools for spatial analysis, and the growth of convincing quasi-experimental and CH 3 - 25
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From page 99... ...
Evidence at the neighborhood level points to schools, community violence, environmental exposures, and local social networks as examples of mechanisms linking the local residential environment with economic and social mobility. Evidence at larger levels of analysis -- such as cities, counties, and commuting zones -- points to segregation and local labor market conditions as examples of forces that influence economic and social mobility.
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From page 100... ...
Conclusion 3-2: At the neighborhood level, the mechanisms linking the local residential environment with economic and social mobility include schools, community violence, and local social networks. At larger levels of analysis -- such as cities, counties, and commuting zones -- the forces that influence economic and social mobility include segregation and local labor market conditions.
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From page 101... ...
, many homeownership policies disproportionately benefit the most affluent communities and households, further entrenching economic segregation and the concentration of economic mobility-relevant resources in higher-income areas. Conclusion 3-3: Most spatial policy strategies are either housing mobility policies, which relocate families to higher-opportunity areas, or place-conscious investments, which aim to bring opportunity and investment into disadvantaged communities.
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From page 102... ...
This is crucial to moving the literature beyond the common focus on the poverty rate or other basic measures of disadvantage in places and instead considering the specific institutions, processes, or phenomena that impede or facilitate upward mobility. Second, moving toward a more complete understanding of heterogeneity in the relationship between space and mobility is closely related to the goal of generating better evidence on mechanisms.
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From page 103... ...
existing policies and interventions that amplify spatial inequality; (6) general equilibrium effects of social policies and the feasibility and costs of different approaches; and (7)
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