Purpose – Evidence suggests that during the 1990s, many US metropolitan areas saw fundamental changes in the spatial distribution of household income. Following two decades of increasing economic segregation, many metropolitan neighborhoods saw declines in economic segregation, particularly those neighborhoods located within central cities and rural areas. This paper adapts the Spatial Ordering Index proposed by Dawkins (2007b) to explore these trends.
Methodology/Approach – Using US Census data, I calculate economic segregation indices for a sample of 205 US metropolitan areas in 1990 and 2000 and decompose changes in the indices into portions attributable to changes in the spatial distribution of households and portions capturing changes in the spatial distribution of aggregate income. I also examine regional variations in the decompositions.
Findings – The results suggest that changes in the spatial distribution of households and of income each influenced metropolitan economic segregation in different ways during the 1990s. Furthermore, the spatial dynamics of income segregation exhibited significant regional heterogeneity.
Originality/Value of paper – This paper presents a new approach to measuring the dynamics of economic segregation.