Governance and Opportunity in Metropolitan America (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Spatial Stratification Within U.S. Metropolitan Areas
Spatial Stratification Within U.S. Metropolitan Areas
Pages 192-212
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From page 192... ...
Many recent studies suggest that children growing up in deprived communities face substantially greater obstacles in obtaining a sound education, securing a steady job, and otherwise advancing their status than their counterparts in more prosperous environments (Ellen and Turner, 1997; Ihlanfeldt, this volume; Mayer, 1996~. Significantly, a few of these studies also suggest that the costs of poverty concentration reach far beyond those poor neighborhoods themselves that the deprivations of South Bronx and Anacostia resonate in Scarsdale and Chevy Chase.
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From page 193... ...
Although more definitive conclusions regarding the precise causes of the jurisdictional disparities would be desirable, they would require further statistical analysis that lies outside the scope of this particular project. THE MAGNITUDE OF SPATIAL DISPARITIES WITHIN METROPOLITAN AREAS City Versus Suburb Most Americans voice a preference for owning a detached, single-family home and view suburban communities as promising better schools, lower crime rates, and less crowding and traffic (Fannie Mae, 1997~.
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From page 194... ...
The disparities presented in this section may be grouped into three categories: income disparities (median household income levels, per capita income levels, and poverty rates) ; labor market disparities (employment and unemployment rates for working-age men)
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From page 195... ...
Unfortunately, despite the widespread acknowledgment that the term "suburb" covers a wide range of metropolitan experience, the Census Bureau offers few alternatives to improve upon it. To provide some sense of the diversity in suburban America, we have exam TABLE 3 Ratio of Selected Outcomes for Central City and Suburban Residents by Race and Ethnicity, 1990 Ratio of Central-City to Suburban Outcome Non-Hispanic Outcome All Persons Whites Blacks Hispanics Median household income 0.74 0.81 0.68 0.73 Per capita income 0.84 0.98 0.8 0.81 Poverty rate, families 2.35 1.66 1.66 1.63 Labor force participation, persons 2 16 0.95 0.96 0.9 0.95 Unemployment rate, men 2 25 1.56 1.18 1.52 1.27 % high school graduates, persons 2 25 0.92 0.98 0.89 0.85 % college graduates, persons 2 25 0.96 1.14 0.7 0.78 Source: U.S.
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From page 196... ...
Relative to their suburban TABLE 4 Ratios of Selected Outcomes for Central City and Suburban Residents, 1960-1990 Ratio of Central-City to Suburban Outcome Outcome 1960 1970 1980 1990 Median family income .89 .85 .81 .77 Per capita income NA .92 .88 .84 Family poverty rate 1.52 1.75 2.08 2.35 % employed, men 2 16a 0.96 0.93 0.92 .91 Unemployment rate, men 2 16 a 1.37 1.33 1.34 1.59 % high school graduates, population 2 25 0.85 0.86 0.9 .94 % college graduates, population 2 25 0.82 0.84 0.94 .96 Note: The number of metropolitan areas differs somewhat from one decade to another, as more metropolitan areas have been defined. In other words, the table is not limited to just those metropolitan areas that existed in all four decades.
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From page 197... ...
The differences in employment and unemployment ratios are not as dramatic, but the direction is the same that is, the gap between central-city and suburban residents is growing consistently larger. And, as Ihlanfeldt shows in his paper in this volume, these central city-suburban disparities have grown much more rapidly for blacks than they have for the population as a whole (Ihlanfeldt, this volume)
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From page 198... ...
But more research into the consistency and causes of these central city-suburban differentials in economic segregation is needed before arriving at any firm conclusions. Neighborhood Racial Segregation The segregation of the poor seems clearly to have increased over the past two decades, but the segregation of whites and blacks appears to have declined.
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From page 199... ...
To perform this ranking, an index of disparity is calculated from the central-city to suburban ratio of three outcomes: per capita income, employment rate for men between 16 and 64, and the proportion of persons 25 or older who have at least a high school diploma. In order that each of the three measures be weighted equally, they are each standardized to a scale of 0-1 before being averaged to create an overall index of disparity.4 The higher the number, the better off the central city relative to its suburban counterparts.
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From page 200... ...
Hypotheses There are several possible reasons why certain metropolitan areas might have greater central-city/suburban disparities than others. This paper considers the possible significance of four types of metropolitan attributes: regional location, demographic characteristics, racial segregation, and governmental structure.
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From page 201... ...
One example of regional policy differences is that metropolitan areas in the Sun Belt tend to rely less on the property tax as a source of revenue, and thus local suburban communities have less motivation to exclude low-income residents (Bollens, 1986~. As for regional differences in governmental structure, metropolitan areas in the West and the South tend to have less fragmented governments; that is, they have fewer local governmental entities, with each entity housing a greater number of people.
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From page 202... ...
The possibility that the causality works in the opposite direction should not be ignored, however. Greater central city-suburban disparities, that is, may encourage a greater proportion of affluent whites to live in suburban communities.
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From page 203... ...
As for the specific outcomes, the ratio of central city to suburban per capita income ranges from a low of .43 in Benton Harbor to a high of 2.2 in Naples, Florida. (Note that Naples is a significant outlier the next-highest ratio of per capita income is 1.6 in Laredo, Texas.)
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From page 204... ...
METROPOLITAN AREAS TABLE 6 U.S. Metropolitan Areas Ranked by Extent of Central City Suburban Disparity, Top and Bottom 10 Areas, 1990 Ratio of Central-City to Suburban Outcome % % High School Overall Metropolitan Per Capita Employed, Graduates, Index of Area Region Income Men 16+ persons 2 25 Disparity Greatest Disparity: Benton Harbor, MI MW .425 .488 .62 0 Newark, NJ NE .451 .817 .652 .171 Hartford, CT NE .52 .76 .708 .179 Cleveland, OH MW .535 .763 .719 .188 Detroit, MI MW .562 .717 .795 .202 Middlesex, NJ NE .525 .843 .684 .209 Trenton, NJ NE .503 .846 .695 .211 Bergen, NJ NE .466 .884 .689 .22 Ft Pierce, FL S .578 .856 .731 .244 Philadelphia, PA NE .63 .803 .775 .246 Least Disparity: Laredo, TX S 1.63 1.08 1.46 .829 McAllen, TX S 1.52 1.08 1.35 .768 Yuma, AZ W 1.24 1.2 1.32 .762 E1 Paso, TX S 1.58 1.05 1.3 .746 Naples, FL S 2.24 .917 1.15 .744 Las Cruces, NM W 1.42 1.06 1.27 .709 Visalia-Tulare, CA W 1.24 1.06 1.3 .684 Corpus Christi, TX S 1.29 1.08 1.22 .676 Bakersfield, CA W 1.27 1.07 1.24 .674 Midland, TX S 1.43 1.05 1.14 .654 Source: U.S.
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From page 205... ...
It also appears true that central cities fare relatively better in metropolitan areas with lower per capita incomes, which is consistent with the
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From page 206... ...
The final demographic characteristic appears to run counter to the hypothesis outlined above, in that metropolitan areas with the relatively strongest central cities tend to have larger proportions of Hispanic residents. But given the concentration of Hispanics in the Western and Southern regions of the country, where central cities are strongest, this correlation between central-city prosperity and the size of the Hispanic population may be spurious.
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From page 207... ...
For metropolitan areas with elasticities above 0.45, however, the correct relationship is estimated by the sum of the coefficient on elasticity and the coefficient on the spline variable. Recall that a larger index of disparity implies a more prosperous central city relative, that is, to its surrounding suburbs.
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From page 208... ...
Central cities also tend to be more disadvantaged in metropolitan areas with higher overall incomes, larger black populations, more segregated minority populations, and smaller Hispanic populations. This final result suggests that the correlation between large Hispanic populations and relatively prosperous central cities is not simply a regional phenomenon and may in fact be more meaningful than at first surmised.
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From page 209... ...
In general, the results suggest that central cities fare worse relative to their suburbs in the Northeast and the Midwest, in larger and wealthier metropolitan areas, and in areas with larger black and smaller Hispanic populations. In addition, unlike past studies, this study examined the role played not only by the size of Canonry populations but by their degree of segregation and found that city-suburb inequality is significantly greater in metropolitan areas with more segregated black and Hispanic populations.
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From page 210... ...
Morgan, David, and Patrice Mareschal 1996 Central City/Suburban Inequality and Metropolitan Political Fragmentation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco.
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From page 211... ...
Nonetheless, it is consistent with the other data used here, which also rely on the official Census definition for central city. The results remain the same when using a more restrictive definition of central city (at least for the 152 metropolitan statistical areas for which the more restrictive measure of elasticity is available)
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From page 212... ...
Their analysis differs in three ways, however. First, they include city-suburban human capital differences as an independent variable, which means that their regression model attempts to explain city-suburban differences in returns to education, rather than overall disparities.
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