Residential Segregation: Beliefs and Preferences

这是一项关于居住隔离的研究。来自过去50年进行的研究的令人信服的证据表明，居住隔离剥夺了黑人许多通常为城市白人提供的机会。梅西和丹顿认为，居住隔离在许多大城市创造了并一直延续着城市下层阶级。虽然20世纪80年代黑人和白人的种族隔离略有下降，但审查最近基于人口普查数据进行的人口分布调查得出的主要印象是，尽管联邦法律发生了变化，非裔美国人的社会和经济地位有所改善，但种族隔离仍然存在。对维持这种隔离的个人层面因素的分析是罕见的，也是不确定的。其中许多都集中在一个大都市底特律，而且只关注白人的信仰和偏好。本研究用最新的数据探讨了核心的理论问题，基本上克服了这些限制。这个项目提出了一个概念模型，解释了Myrdal观察到的非正式社会压力是维持黑人与白人在地理上的隔离的主要力量所产生的持续种族隔离的原因。该模型假设，个人对自己的群体和其他种族群体持有的信念会影响他们对哪些社区有吸引力，哪些应该避免的看法。通过一个创新的数据集--城市不平等多城市研究(MCSUI)，这项研究将测试关于四个地点(亚特兰大、波士顿、底特律和洛杉矶)的黑人和白人样本、两个地点(波士顿和洛杉矶)的拉美裔样本和洛杉矶的亚裔样本的信念和偏好的假设。丰富的相关变量允许以两种方式测试该模型。首先，这项研究将考察特征和信仰如何影响受访者对居住在不同种族构成的假设社区的偏好。例如，当黑人搬进来时，对黑人持有刻板印象的白人是否不太可能留在自己的社区，他们是否不愿意搬到已经融合的社区？其次，受访者被要求评估居住在特定地点的可取性，如郊区或中心城市内的知名社区。如果黑人预料到某个特定郊区的居民会有敌意，他们是否也会认为，尽管那里有负担得起的住房，但那里也不是一个值得居住的地方？通过提出这样的问题，这项研究将解决个人的信仰和偏好如何转化为决定黑人和白人居住分布的众多区位决定。MCSUI数据集的独特结构还允许研究人员调查类似的动态是否可能影响正在进入我们日益多样化的大都市的拉美裔和亚裔的居住分布。

This is a study of residential segregation. Convincing evidence from studies conducted throughout the last five decades demonstrates that residential segregation denies blacks many opportunities generally available to urban whites. Massey and Denton argue that residential segregation created and now perpetuates an urban underclass in many large cities. Although there were modest declines in black-white segregation in the 1980s; the primary impression gained from examining recent investigations of population distribution based on census data is the persistence of segregation despite changes in federal laws and improvements in the social and economic status of African-Americans. Analyses of the individual level factors acting to sustain this segregation are both rare and inconclusive. Many of these have focused on one metropolis, Detroit, and on the beliefs and preferences of whites only. The present study engages the central theoretical issues with fresh data that largely overcome these limitations. This project presents a conceptual model of the causes of continued segregation emanating from Myrdal's observation that informal social pressures are the primary forces sustaining the geographic isolation of blacks from whites. The model posits that the beliefs individuals hold about their own group and about other racial groups influence their perceptions of which neighborhoods are attractive and which should be avoided. With an innovative data set, the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI), the research will test hypotheses about the beliefs and preferences of samples of blacks and whites in four sites (Atlanta, Boston, Detroit and Los Angeles), samples of Latinos in two (Boston and Los Angeles) and a sample of Asians in Los Angeles. The abundance of relevant variables allows testing the model in two ways. First, the research will examine how characteristics and beliefs influence respondents' preferences for living in hypothetical neighborhoods with varying racial compositi ons. For example, are whites who hold stereotypical beliefs about blacks less likely to remain in their neighborhoods when blacks move in, and are they unwilling to move into already integrated neighborhoods? Second, respondents were asked to evaluate the desirability of living in specific locations such as suburbs or well-known neighborhoods within the central city. If blacks anticipate hostility from the residents of a particular suburb, do they also view it as an undesirable place to live despite the presence of affordable housing there? By asking such questions this research will address how individuals' beliefs and preferences translate into the multitude of locational decisions that determine the residential distributions of blacks and whites. The unique structure of the MCSUI data set also allows the research to investigate whether similar dynamics are likely to affect the residential distributions of Hispanics and Asians who are now entering our increasingly diverse metropolises.