Explaining Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Spatial Mismatch in the US: The Primacy of Racial Segregation

Abstract

Despite declines in racial segregation across most U.S. metropolitan areas in recent years, racial and ethnic minorities still display uneven geographic access to jobs. In this article, the authors provide a detailed analysis of the factors driving racial and ethnic gaps in spatial mismatch conditions across U.S. metropolitan areas. Using data primarily from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses, and the 1994 and 1999Economic Censuses, and the Zip Code Business Pattern files, we generate descriptive, multivariate, and decompositional evidence to address why blacks and to a lesser extent Latinos display greater degrees of spatial mismatch than whites. The results indicate that racial segregation in housing markets, among many other factors including job sprawl, is the most important factor. The authors' models indicate that racial differences in spatial mismatch conditions, particularly between blacks and whites, should be eliminated in 45 to 50 years should racial segregation levels continue to decline in the future at similar rates observed over the 1990s.

Redefining Neighborhoods Using Common Destinations: Social Characteristics of Activity Spaces and Home Census Tracts Compared

“…The larger activity spaces of African American respondents are, at least partly, a reflection of this process. Another hypothesis is that African Americans’ activity spaces are larger because African Americans have to search further for jobs as a result of the history of residential segregation and movement of jobs to outlying areas (Stoll and Covington 2012). However, research on the effects of spatial mismatch on employment and wages suggests that the problem; is less severe in Los Angeles than many other cities; is more of a skills mismatch than a spatial one; and, to the extent that it exists, is actually a transportation problem rather than a distance problem (Liu and Painter 2012; Ong and Miller 2005; Stoll 1999).…”

“…Thus, we would expect smaller differences between the home and activity space characteristics for a foreign-born than a native-born individual. Similarly, if African Americans and Latinos travel farther to work, as the spatial mismatch hypothesis suggests (Stoll and Covington 2012), their home tracts and activity space characteristics are likely to be greater than for other groups. We test for ethnicity-specific effects using interaction terms between individuals’ characteristics and the activity space indicator variables.…”

Job Accessibility of the Poor in Los Angeles

“…Although Blacks still face great constraints in the housing and labor markets, most experts feel that racial segregation has been moderated (Massey, 2001;Massey, Rothwell, & Domina, 2009). Stoll and Covington (2012) suggest that there are declining racial or ethnic gaps in the conditions that create spatial mismatch in most U.S. metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, other researchers have tested the SMH on immigrants (Liu & Painter, 2012), welfare recipients (Bania, Leete, & Coulton, 2008;Blumenberg & Manville 2004;Ong & Blumenberg, 1998;Sanchez, Shen, & Peng, 2004), and people with low job skills (Kawabata, 2003;Stoll, 2005).…”

“…As a society, we need to focus on holistic policies that reduce housing and labor market discrimination (Stoll and Covington, 2012), provide appropriate childcare options (Blumenberg, 2004;Grengs, 2015), improve human capital (Houston, 2005), and foster productive social networks (Zenou, 2013). More importantly, suburbanization poses challenges for social service providers in reaching the spatially dispersed poor; we must develop strategies to better connect the suburban poor to needed social services (Allard, 2008).…”

Changing Job Access of the Poor: Effects of Spatial and Socioeconomic Transformations in Chicago, 1990–2010

“…This is not necessarily true. Employment concentration and housing segregation in the suburbs can still create great spatial barriers for the poor to reach jobs (Stoll and Covington, 2012).…”