Persistent Discrimination in Residential Mobility between Cities and Suburbs : Flight from Minority Suburbs Succeeds Flight from Minority Cities ]

I dedicate this paper to my thesis adviser Professor Olney. I am infinitely grateful for your guidance. Thank you for all the support you gave me this past year, your encouraging words and patience. It was an honor and privilege to work with such a great mentor. Thanks again. Introduction. Suburbanization has long been associated with upward social mobility. Suburbs generally have lower crime rates and offer more public services of better quality than their urban counterparts, thus providing more benefits and advantages to their residents. In contrast, cities are experiencing urban decay due to out-migration to the suburbs, the decline of industrial activity, and increases in crime. According to urban economic theory, household sorting occurs: households tend to sort themselves into neighborhoods of persons with similar income, education, and race. Household sorting results in poorer, less educated, and ethnic minority individuals living in urban areas such that these residents' characteristics lead to the concentrated problems of cities. At the same time, urban decay reinforces these city residents' lower socioeconomic status with more exposure to crime, fewer opportunities for job networking, and scarce public services. Since there is a significant imbalance between suburban and urban neighborhoods, it is important to study movement from cities to suburbs and vice versa. Although suburbanization has become widespread because of the traditional view that suburbs are superior to their urban counterparts, I also examine migration flows from the suburbs to the city. Some have argued that the traditional suburb has disappeared as the problems of the central city move to the suburbs with the migrants (Katz 2009), which may encourage movement in the opposite direction. Recent migration trends to the city have increased, prompting studies on the types of people moving to the city and the reasons for this reverse movement. For example, gentrification—or the restoration of decaying cities by entering higher income 2 residents—has led many suburban households to relocate to the city. Some praise the revitalization of deteriorated cities whereas others condemn gentrifiers for increasing house prices and standards of living that effectively displace low-income and minority households from their urban homes. Gentrification demonstrates that movement from the suburbs to cities can have substantial consequences. Additionally, between 2000 and 2006, eight of the 50 largest cities saw their proportions of whites increased as young whites move to city for job opportunities, now being dubbed ―bright flight‖ (Dougherty 2008). These migration trends show …