The proposed research will analyze residential segregation and neighborhood change in the 50 largest metropolitan areas of the Unites States using data from three consecutive decennial censuses: 1970, 1980, and 1990. After compiling the data set and matching neighborhoods across all three censuses, we will measure the trends and patterns of Black, Hispanic, and Asian residential segregation. We will pay special attention to the causes of concentrated urban poverty and the spatial location of middle-class and underclass blacks. We will also examine the prospects for neighborhood revitalization by new immigrant groups. Analysis of Asian residential segregation will be restricted to urban areas in which they account for a significant proportion of the total population. Several metropolitan areas with large populations are also added to the dataset to provide a more comprehensive picture of Hispanic segregation. Drawing on the previous work of Massey,this research project will update, reevaluate, and extend the work done by Massey, Denton, and Eggers with two new areas of emphasis. First we will explicitly take into account the emerging multi-ethnic structure of large U.S. metropolises in our analysis of residential segregation. Current debates surrounding the persistence of the underclass, the process of assimilation of recent immigrants, and the role of the civil rights movement in helping middle-class blacks to escape the ghetto, all point to the importance of understanding race, class and the multi-ethnic mosaic of our cities. Second, we will develop a comprehensive model of neighborhood change based on housing stock characteristics, racial structure, and the ecological location of each neighborhood. The analysis of neighborhood change is threefold. First, we will identify the neighborhood's race-neutral demographic and housing stock characteristics that predispose it to change. Second, we will determine the effect of these characteristics on the neighborhood's changing racial structure. Third, we will use the neighborhood's ecological location--determined by he concentric circle model, the sector model, and the multiple nuclei model-- as a measure of the context in which the changes occur. The final phase of the project will link our models of the neighborhood change to patterns and trends of residential segregation.
