Impacts of Multiscale Racial Concentration on Neighborhood Foreclosure Risk in Immigrant Gateway Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

Scholars define emerging gateway metropolitan areas in the United States as regions in which immigrant communities settled after the 1990s. Historically, immigrant and minority neighborhoods are characterized by exclusion from conventional sources of financial capital––factors which compound risks associated with residential instability and foreclosure. Yet, these new gateways may offer protection from foreclosure due to the relative affordability of housing and concentration of racial and ethnic and class advantages. We examine whether foreclosure risk is mediated through spatial processes, race, nativity, and class. We find that race and nativity play a major role in mediating risk across immigrant gateways. Neighborhoods with higher levels of Asian concentration presented lower risk, regardless of nativity and income. In contrast, Latino foreclosure risk varied by nativity, income, and gateway. Emerging gateways are also associated with higher foreclosure risk. Our findings inform resurgent ethnicity theory and how middle–class immigrant neighborhoods offer improved socioeconomic outcomes without relying on White areas as a standard for immigrant integration.