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The Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed housing discrimination by race and provided an important tool for dismantling legal segregation. But almost fifty years later, residential segregation remains virtually unchanged in many metropolitan areas, particularly where large groups of racial and ethnic minorities live. Why does segregation persist at such high rates and what makes it so difficult to combat? InCycle of Segregation, sociologists Maria Krysan and Kyle Crowder examine how everyday social processes shape residential stratification. Past neighborhood experiences, social networks, and daily activities all affect the mobility patterns of different racial groups in ways that have cemented segregation as a self-perpetuating cycle in the twenty-first century.Through original analyses of national-level surveys and in-depth interviews with residents of Chicago, Krysan and Crowder find that residential stratification is reinforced through the biases and blind spots that individuals exhibit in their searches for housing. People rely heavily on information from friends, family, and coworkers when choosing where to live. Because these social networks tend to be racially homogenous, people are likely to receive information primarily from members of their own racial group and move to neighborhoods that are also dominated by their group. Similarly, home-seekers who report wanting to stay close to family members can end up in segregated destinations because their relatives live in those neighborhoods. The authors suggest that even absent of family ties, people gravitate toward neighborhoods that are familiar to them through their past experiences, including where they have previously lived, and where they work, shop, and spend time. Because historical segregation has shaped so many of these experiences, even these seemingly race-neutral decisions help reinforce the cycle of residential stratification. As a result, segregation has declined much more slowly than many social scientists have expected.To overcome this cycle, Krysan and Crowder advocate multi-level policy solutions that pair inclusionary zoning and affordable housing with education and public relations campaigns that emphasize neighborhood diversity and high-opportunity areas. They argue that together, such programs can expand the number of destinations available to low-income residents and help offset the negative images many people hold about certain neighborhoods or help introduce them to places they had never considered.Cycle of Segregationdemonstrates why a nuanced understanding of everyday social processes is critical for interrupting entrenched patterns of residential segregation.

Although overall air quality has improved in the United States, air pollution remains unevenly distributed across neighborhoods, producing disproportionate environmental burdens for minoritized and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents for whom greater exposure to other structurally rooted neighborhood stressors is also more frequent. These interrelated dynamics and layered vulnerabilities each have well-documented associations with physical and psychological health outcomes; however, much remains unknown about the joint effects of environmental hazards and neighborhood socioeconomic factors on self-reported health status. We examined the nexus of air pollution exposure, neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, and self-rated health (SRH) among adults in the United States. This observational study used individual-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics merged with contextual information, including neighborhood socioeconomic and air pollution data at the census tract and census block levels, spanning the period of 1999-2015. We estimated ordinary least squares regression models predicting SRH by 10-y average exposures to fine particulate matter [particles in aerodynamic diameter ( )] and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage while controlling for individual-level correlates of health. We also investigated the interaction effects of air pollution and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on SRH. On average, respondents in our sample rated their health as 3.41 on a scale of 1 to 5. Respondents in neighborhoods with higher 10-y average concentrations or socioeconomic disadvantage rated their health more negatively after controlling for covariates [ (95% CI: , ); (95% CI: , ), respectively]. We also found that the deleterious associations of exposure with SRH were weaker in the context of greater neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage ( ; 95% CI: 0.002, 0.011). Study results indicate that the effects of air pollution on SRH may be less salient in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods compared with more advantaged areas, perhaps owing to the presence of other more proximate structurally rooted health risks and vulnerabilities in disinvested areas (e.g., lack of economic resources, health access, healthy food options). This intersection may further underscore the importance of meaningful involvement and political power building among community stakeholders on issues concerning the nexus of environmental and socioeconomic justice, particularly in structurally marginalized communities. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP11268.

Race and ethnicity are consequential constructs when it comes to exposure to air pollution. Persistent environmental racial/ethnic inequalities call for attention to identifying the factors that maintain them. We examined associations between racial residential segregation and racial/ethnic inequalities in exposure to three types of air pollutants. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1990–2011), the U.S. Census (1990–2010), and the Environmental Protection Agency, we tested the independent and joint contributions of race/ethnicity and metropolitan-level residential segregation on individual levels of exposure to air pollution nationwide. We found that racial and ethnic minorities were exposed to significantly higher levels of air pollution compared to Whites. The difference between minorities and Whites in exposure to all three types of air pollution was most pronounced in metropolitan areas with high levels of residential segregation. The environmental inequities observed in this study call for public health and policy initiatives to ameliorate the sources of racial/ethnic gaps in pollution exposure. Given the links between the physical environment and health, addressing such uneven environmental burdens may be a promising way to improve population health and decrease racial/ethnic inequalities therein.

Using geo-referenced data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, in conjunction with decennial census data, this research examines metropolitan-area variation in the ability of residentially mobile blacks, Hispanics, and whites to convert their income into two types of neighborhood outcomes—neighborhood racial composition and neighborhood socioeconomic status. For destination tract racial composition, we find strong and near-universal support for the “weak version” of place stratification theory; relative to whites, the effect of individual income on the percent of the destination tract population that is non-Hispanic white is stronger for blacks and Hispanics, but even the highest earning minority group members move to tracts that are “less white” than the tracts that the highest-earning whites move to. In contrast, for moves into neighborhoods characterized by higher levels of average family income, we find substantial heterogeneity across metropolitan areas in minorities' capacity to convert income into neighborhood quality. A slight majority of metropolitan areas evince support for the “strong version” of place stratification theory, in which blacks and Hispanics are less able than whites to convert income into neighborhood socioeconomic status. However, a nontrivial number of metropolitan areas also evince support for spatial assimilation theory, where the highest-earning minorities achieve neighborhood parity with the highest-earning whites. Several metropolitan-area characteristics, including residential segregation, racial and ethnic composition, immigrant population size, poverty rates, and municipal fragmentation, emerge as significant predictors of minority-white differences in neighborhood attainment.

Neighborhood-based social capital – defined as resources within neighborhood social networks – is a potential contributor to adolescent oral health, but mechanisms that link the two are not well elucidated. We evaluated the potential mediating role of neighborhood, household, and individual oral health risk factors in the neighborhood social capital-tooth decay relationship. We collected cross-sectional data from 331 Medicaid-enrolled adolescents (ages 12–18 years) and one of their caregivers from 73 census tracts (neighborhoods) in three counties in Oregon, U.S.A in 2015 and 2016. Medicaid is a public insurance program in the U.S. providing no-cost dental insurance to low-income children. We measured four neighborhood social capital constructs: social support, social leverage, informal social control, and neighborhood organization participation. Oral health risk factors included worrying about food money, poor access to vegetables and fruits, inconsistent family and oral health routines, and adolescent stress. The outcome was number of untreated decayed tooth surfaces. Causal mediation analyses with mixed effect models were used to examine associations. Neighborhoods with higher social support had a lower prevalence of worrying about food money (prevalence ratio [PR] 0.74;95% CI: 0.56, 0.96;p = .02) as did neighborhoods with higher informal social control (PR 0.75;95% CI:0.58, 0.97;p = .03). All oral health risk factors were strongly associated with untreated decayed tooth surfaces. No form of neighborhood social capital was significantly associated with tooth decay. Natural indirect effects of neighborhood social support and informal social control operating through worrying about food money were not statistically significant. Future longitudinal studies that include robust measures of neighborhood social capital and adequate sample sizes are needed to enable neighborhood-based interventions that promote adolescent oral health.

Massey and Denton’s concept of hypersegregation describes how multiple and distinct forms of black-white segregation lead to high levels of black-white stratification. However, numerous studies assessing the association between segregation and racial stratification applied only one or two dimensions of segregation, neglecting how multiple forms of segregation combine to potentially exacerbate socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites. We address this by using data from the U.S. Census from 1980 to 2010 and data from the American Community Survey from 2012 to 2016 to assess trajectories for black-white disparities in educational attainment, employment, and neighborhood poverty between metropolitan areas with hypersegregation and black-white segregation, as measured by the dissimilarity index. Using a time-varying measure of segregation types, our results indicate that in some cases, hypersegregated metropolitan areas have been associated with larger black-white socioeconomic disparities beyond those found in metropolitan areas that are highly segregated in terms of dissimilarity but are not hypersegregated. However, the contrasts in black-white socioeconomic inequality between hypersegregated metropolitan areas and those with high segregation largely diminish by the 2012 to 2016 observation.

Using data from the 1981, 1991, and 2001 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and several decennial censuses, we examine how characteristics of metropolitan areas are associated with black and white households' neighborhood racial composition. Results from hierarchical linear models show that about 20% to 40% of the variation in the percentage of households' tract population that is non-Hispanic white or non-Hispanic black exists across metropolitan areas. Over time, white households' exposure to non-Hispanic white neighbors has declined, and their exposure to non-Hispanic black neighbors has increased; the reverse trends are observed for blacks. These trends cannot be attributed to changes in the ecological structure of metropolitan areas. Blacks have fewer white neighbors in large metropolitan areas containing sizable minority populations, and blacks have more white neighbors in metropolitan areas with high government employment. Whites have more black neighbors in metropolitan areas with high levels of government employment and ample new housing; whites have fewer black neighbors in metropolitan areas with a high level of municipal fragmentation. The association between metropolitan-area percentage black and tract percentage black is weaker among whites than among blacks, suggesting that whites are especially motivated to self-segregate in metropolitan areas with large black populations.

Throughout its history, the real estate industry has emphasized privacy and exclusion in housing advertisements, helping entrench patterns of residential segregation in the process. Recently, however, some forms of neighborhood-level social diversity are becoming more common, as indicated by the growing number of neighborhoods that are mixed-income. Does the proliferation of income-diverse neighborhoods suggest that advertisers are curtailing their exclusionary rhetoric when marketing homes in mixed-income communities? To answer this question, this study analyzes over one million Craigslist rental listings posted in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in July and August of 2019. Findings show that real estate advertisers continue to rely on rhetorical strategies that likely reinforce, if not encourage, privacy and exclusion in mixed-income neighborhoods. Specifically, rental advertisements in mixed-income neighborhoods were disproportionately likely to mention that the advertised unit came with a home security device, a rhetorical tool likely aimed at calming homeseekers’ apprehension toward living in an income-diverse neighborhood. This finding suggests that scholars have underexamined the strategies that real estate actors use to persuade homeseekers to live in diverse neighborhoods. Furthermore, the security rhetoric prevalent in income-diverse neighborhoods may encourage homeseekers’ fears of mixed-income settings and impede cross-class social integration.

Against the backdrop of an acute rental affordability crisis and a resurgent tenant’s rights movement, rental industry groups have frequently argued that tenant protection laws disproportionately harm “mom-and-pop” landlords and, by extension, the disadvantaged tenants they serve. The authors leverage a changing regulatory environment in Seattle to provide a rare empirical interrogation of these claims. This analysis of a novel set of consumer data linked with parcel records provides no evidence that tenant protection laws drove “mom-and-pop” landlords out of the rental market. Moreover, an analysis of a survey of almost 4,000 Seattle landlords suggests that “mom-and-pop” landlords use management practices that are largely similar to those used by landlords with larger rental portfolios. These findings run counter to pervasive political narratives regarding the detrimental effects of tenant protection regulations on the small-scale rental sector and bring needed attention to the repercussions of claims-making for stratification in the housing context.

We used merged data from the Latino National Political Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and the U.S. census to examine patterns and determinants of interneighborhood residential mobility between 1990 and 1995 for 2,074 U.S. residents of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban ethnicity. In several respects, our findings confirm the central tenets of spatial assimilation theory: Latino residential mobility into neighborhoods that are inhabited by greater percentages of non-Hispanic whites (i.e., Anglos) increases with human and financial capital and English-language use. However, these results also point to variations in the residential mobility process among Latinos that are broadly consistent with the segmented assimilation perspective on ethnic and immigrant incorporation. Net of controls, Puerto Ricans are less likely than Mexicans to move to neighborhoods with relatively large Anglo populations, and the generational and socioeconomic differences that are anticipated by the classical assimilation model emerge more strongly for Mexicans than for Puerto Ricans or Cubans. Among Puerto Ricans and Cubans, darker skin color inhibits mobility into Anglo neighborhoods.