A recent report by Sean F. Reardon and Kendra Bischoff of Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis has found a significant increase in residential income segregation in the United States over the last four decades.
High levels of income inequality may, but do not necessarily, correlate positively with high levels of income segregation, according to the study authors.
“There can be lots of income inequality but no income segregation,” said Reardon, an associate professor of education.
In 1970, roughly 66 percent of families lived in mixed-income neighborhoods. This has decreased to about 44 percent. This shift correlates with an increase in families living in neighborhoods characterized as either affluent or poor.
Bischoff cited areas in Silicon Valley, such as Palo Alto, as places with high home values, which contribute to income segregation.
Income segregation increased most rapidly in the last decade. According to Bischoff, there was an increase in segregation over larger areas of land as a result of the recent increase in suburbanization.
“I was surprised at the sheer increase that we’ve seen,” Bischoff said.
The recent housing crisis may have caused an unpredictable effect on income segregation, according to Bischoff and Reardon, especially due to the fact that both low-income and middle-income families were foreclosed on in recent years.
“The recession and the housing market crisis has been a huge disruption to the trends in the relationship between how much money people make and where they live,” Reardon said.
This trend is troubling according to both authors, who said mixed-income neighborhoods provide better public services for society.
“Higher-income areas often spend more on public services,” Reardon said. He further noted a smaller need for such public services in higher-income neighborhoods, showing an inefficient allocation of resources.
Mixed-income neighborhoods therefore provide a “spillover of public services” according to Bischoff. Such neighborhoods provide more resources for low-income children who would not have access to such services in isolated, low-income neighborhoods.
Reardon also cited mixed-income neighborhoods as beneficial to the political sphere.
“We worry that increasing segregation means increasing political polarization,” he said. Should representatives be more from mixed-income areas, according to Reardon, there would be increasing pressure for representatives to work toward a more common good, rather than represent the individual interest of segregated districts.
Furthermore, both authors claim that increasing income segregation decreases the breadth of perspective people have in regards to the lives of those with different economic status.
“We think that having more contact with people that are different from yourself benefits the ability to make decisions about social policy and the democratic process,” Bischoff said.
Both Reardon and Bischoff say that developments that promote mixed-income housing in particular areas would help reverse the trend.
“The truth of the matter is that income segregation is hard to reverse,” Bischoff said, particularly due to its connection to housing stock, which changes slowly over time.
Bischoff also stated that changes in income inequality would have a variety of social effects beyond income segregation, and such changes would most likely be a result of tax policy.
The study was an extension of a previous study done by Bischoff and Reardon about the connection between income inequality and income segregation during the period of 1970 to 2000. The research was supported by the US2010 project conducted by Brown University and the Russell Sage Foundation. US2010, led by John Logan, is a research project focusing on recent societal trends in America.