What Would It Take to Desegregate U.S. Metropolitan Areas? Pathways to Residential Desegregation by Race

Abstract

Abstract Patterns of household mobility across neighborhoods reproduce patterns of racial segregation at the metropolitan level. Substantial literature across the social sciences has explored the scale and predictors of household mobility as well as changes in metropolitan residential segregation over time. This study unifies these two strands of inquiry by connecting the sorting of households across neighborhoods to aggregate changes in segregation levels. Using discrete choice models of intrametropolitan mobility and restricted decennial census and American Community Survey data for 1960–2014, I model the correlates of household mobility and identify the counterfactual scenarios under which lower segregation levels can be achieved. The results show that even though the mobility flows of the White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian populations across census tracts have become more similar over time, U.S. metropolitan areas are far from experiencing large drops in segregation.