Study: Rich, poor Americans increasingly likely to live in
separate neighborhoods

By Carol Morello
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/rich-and-poor-grow-more-isolated-from-each-other-study-finds/2012/08/01/gJQABC5QPX_story.html

Rising income inequality has led to a growing number of
Americans clustering in neighborhoods in which most
residents are like them, either similarly affluent or
similarly low-income, according to a new study detailing
the increasing isolation of the richest and the poorest.

A report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center
said the percentage of upper-income households situated in
affluent neighborhoods doubled between 1980 and 2010,
rising to 18 percent. In the same time frame, the share of
lower-income households located in mostly poorer
neighborhoods rose from 23 percent to 28 percent. The
percentage of neighborhoods that are predominantly middle
class or home to a wider mix of income levels shrank.

"The country has increasingly sorted itself into areas
where people are surrounded by more of their own kind, if
you will," said Paul Taylor, the Pew Center's director of
demographic trends and a co-author of the report, adding
that the majority of neighborhoods in the country are
still mostly middle class or mixed.

The Pew study is the latest scholarly analysis of census
data showing the impact of a slow and steady squeezing of
the middle class, which in turn has swelled the two income
extremes. Because of a lag in the way census data are
tabulated, the full impact of the recession that started
at the end of 2007 will not become clear for several
years.

What sociologists call "segregation by income" at the
neighborhood level has been underway for decades, but the
most recent census data suggest that the pace picked up
between 2000 and 2010.

Pew found that the trend is most pronounced in the
Southwest. The three cities with the most income
segregation in the country are in Texas: San Antonio,
Houston and Dallas. The study attributed that to an influx
of, at one end, low-skilled and low-wage workers from
Mexico and Central America, and at the other end,
high-skilled workers and well-to-do retirees.

The Washington region experienced a small rise in the
share of neighborhoods that can be characterized as mostly
well-off or mostly low-income. Among the nation's 30
largest metropolitan areas, Washington falls smack in the
middle in terms of income segregation, placing it slightly
above the national average, according to the study.

Pew calculated that the share of affluent households in
the Washington area -- those earning $171,000 or more --
living in majority upper-income neighborhoods increased to
15 percent from 13 percent over three decades. Meanwhile,
the share of households with incomes below $57,000 and
living in lower-income neighborhoods rose to 32 percent
from 31 percent.

Both Pew and a study by two Stanford University
sociologists last year say the biggest factor behind the
growing residential isolation is a rise in income
inequality. The Stanford study said the share of families
living in middle-income neighborhoods has dropped over
four decades, from almost two-thirds to less than half.

Many other factors also are at play.

William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings
Institution, sees a generational divide at work,
particularly in big cities. The baby boom generation
bought houses in neighborhoods where their children are
now priced out.

"Younger people are still struggling to just buy a home,
and the kind of neighborhoods where they end up are not
nearly as nice," he said. "Age isn't a part of this study,
but it underlies it."

Frey said the types of developments that have fueled
growth in suburbs and exurbs have exacerbated income
segregation.

"They are where the McMansions were built," he said. "As a
result, these are areas segregated among the upper
income."

Sean Reardon, one of the Stanford sociologists, found a
similar trend going back four decades. He said
restrictions on lot size have limited the construction of
cheaper houses and apartment buildings in many new
developments. At the same time, he said, a lot of
high-density, low-income housing has been torn down and
replaced by low-density housing throughout cities.

Thomas Anderson, president of Washington Fine Properties,
who has been selling real estate for more than 30 years in
New York and the Washington area, said the high price of
housing has added a new element to many buyers' lists of
must-haves. Many more home buyers now want to be sure that
their neighbors have the financial wherewithal to maintain
their properties and not have to enter into short sales,
he said.

"The price of real estate is so high that people are
concerned about their investment," he said. "It's
counterproductive to work hard to invest in a home that's
going to be negatively affected by a short sale."

The rising phenomenon of segregation by income -- at a time
when segregation by race is on the decline -- may have
implications for communities and politics.

Reardon said a neighborhood that lacks socioeconomic
diversity could be less supportive of taxes to fund
schools, parks and social services in other neighborhoods.

"If people with most of the money and wealth live
separately from everyone else, there's going to be less
investment in the neighborhoods where the middle class and
the poor live," he said.

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