Job Relocation and the Racial Gap in Unemployment in Detroit and Chicago, 1980 to 1990

Using Geographic Information Systems to Reconceptualize Spatial Relationships and Ecological Context

“…Researchers interested in metropolitan area residents' access to manufacturing jobs could draw circles with a fixed radius around the center of each census tract and for each tract, count the number of manufacturing jobs that fall inside that tract's circle or the number of manufacturing jobs that are located in tracts that are partially or completely encompassed by that tract's circle (Mouw 2000). Researchers could also calculate the distance between each pair of census tracts in the metropolitan area and calculate, for each tract, the weighted sum of all the manufacturing jobs in the metropolitan area, using weights that decline from one to zero as the distance between tracts increases.…”

“…In addition, Bergesen and Herman (1998), in their study of the 1992 Los Angeles race riot, merge street-intersection-specific riot fatality data with merged 1980/1990 census tract data; Mouw (2000), in his study of spatial mismatch in Detroit and Chicago, merges 1980 and 1990 census tract data for both metropolitan areas; South and Crowder (1998), in their study of black and white residential mobility, link individual-level Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data to 1980 census data using PSID respondent street addresses; McCarthy et al (1988), in their study of social movement organization founding rates, merge address-specific car crash fatality data with county-level census data; and Anderton et al (1994a), in their national study of environmental inequality, merge address-specific hazardous waste site data with 1980 census tract data.…”

“…Whether studying geographic access to abortion providers, urban poverty, corporate board interlocks, social capital, collective efficacy, or environmental inequality, sociologists are asking increasingly sophisticated substantive questions about space and ecological context (Anderton et al 1994a;Kasarda 1989;Kono et al 1998;Lichter, McLaughlin, and Ribar 1998;Mouw 2000;Sampson, Morenoff, and Earls 1999;Wilson 1987). This renewed interest in space and ecological context emerged simultaneously with the development of geographic information systems (GIS): mapping and database management software explicitly designed to analyze spatial data and test spatial hypotheses.…”

Segregation and black/white differences in exposure to air toxics in 1990.

“…In addition, as manufacturing shifts from cities to suburbs, from north to south, and from the United States to other countries, the importance of TRI may decline in older center cities. Furthermore, to the extent that economic restructuring has disproportionately affected Black communities and inner cities (22,23), it may lessen TRIbased disparities. Other studies have only examined potential disparate impacts in single states or regions defined by the U.S. EPA.…”

The poverty of liberal economics

“…In turn, sociologically oriented scholars often focus on unemployment and earnings as key determinants of poverty (see Jencks and Peterson 1991;McFate, Lawson and Wilson 1995;Marks 1991). Numerous empirical studies focus on unemployment or underemployment as measures of the economic changes that cause poverty (Lichter 1988;Massey et al 1994;Eggers and Massey 1991;Cohn and Fossett 1996;Mouw 2000). Across the social sciences, unemployment is considered a crucial precursor to poverty.…”