Suburbanization and Home Ownership: The Spatial Assimilation Process in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

This article provides a detailed picture of spatial assimilation by simultaneously considering suburbanization and home ownership in order to model the complexity of residential patterns in modern society. The data are from the 1% Sample of the 1990 PUMS. Multinominal logit analyses were used to estimate the effects of socioeconomic level, acculturation characteristics, and race/ethnicity on the likelihood of householders being home owners or renters by housing locations. The results show that these factors affect the likelihood of householders living in suburbs for each tenure status in unique ways. Second, contrary to the spatial assimilation model, there is evidence that householders who are more acculturated and have more socioeconomic resources would rather be home owners in the central city than live in the suburbs as renters. Finally, the results also suggest extensive differences across racial groups in the effects of socioeconomic resources and acculturation.