Immobility, Cont.
- Posted by ryan on September 5th, 2007 filed in Cities
This isn’t the whole story, by any means, because all workers are not the same. Looking again at that Post story, we find that, “Non-Hispanic whites in the District have a median household income of $91,631, and the figure drops to $34,484 for blacks.” Taking the data all together, it appears that there are three categories of mobility among workers. There are the highly-mobile rich, whose locational decisions are not significantly altered by high housing costs, and who are therefore able to best respond to income incentives. There are the middle-income semi-mobile, whose locational choices are truncated at the top end by high housing costs. This group generally responds to income differences between locations, but their choices are truncated at the top end, meaning that their movement within cities trends outward (toward outer suburbs and exurbs) and their movement between cities trends toward places with high housing supplies. And then there are the low-income immobile, for whom income incentives play almost no role, either because the return to migration is so low, or because the cost of migration is too high. This group likely responds to high housing costs by remaining in public housing, crowding, or concentrating in low-income neighborhoods, thereby slowing housing cost increases in those neighborhoods.
Looking at mobility this way, we see that better urban design and better transport policies should shift some marginal workers–the middle group–from lower income cities into higher income cities (and might also increase the potential income of lower income cities), but it won’t do a thing for the middle and lower income populations, as a whole. For that, policies are required which will increase the skills base of those groups.
I think that when we talk about gentrification, what we’re really talking about it a conflict between two strategies: improving the potential of a land area versus improving the potential of a group of people. When policies improve the lot of lower-income individuals and shift them into the middle-income group, we should expect them to respond, locationally, as other middle-income households do: by moving outward or away from central cities. Policies that are successful at improving the economic status of the poor might then exacerbate the tensions involved in gentrification, by skimming off the most promising low earners and moving them away, while the hardest cases remain behind, alongside the highest earners. In the end, it’s very difficult to imagine what set of policies would both improve the economic status of the urban poor and improve the urban economic income distribution to make it less unequal.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:53 am
In the end, it’s very difficult to imagine what set of policies would both improve the economic status of the urban poor and improve the urban economic income distribution to make it less unequal.
Two words: Hurricane Katrina.
I really hope the Census Bureau or FEMA is tracking data related to post-Katrina population dispersal. What happened to the residents of the prjects in the Ninth Ward? Did they get employment elsewhere? Are they in FEMA trailers in Baton Rouge? Or do they remain perpetually under-employed in another part of the country?
The major reason behind DC’s economic turnaround in the 1990s was the transition from housing projects to mixed-income apartments; combined with the cutbacks in low-income assistance, there was a massive dispersal of low-income populations from SE/NE DC into PG County. There was also enormous growth in the African-American middle class, and their subsequent migration to PG County as well. That vaccuum was filled by highly-educated DINKs and Poor Urban Professionals that expanded the tax base while not being an economic drain on it. And all that was contingent on the economic boom of the 1990s which seems to be, if not slowing down, at least growing at a slower rate than the previous decade.
I know of several families who moved from NoVA to Raleigh/Durham within the past year. The key factor in their decision to move was cost-of-living. Traffic didn’t really enter into it since rush hours here and there are comparable.
September 7th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Oh, you’re quite right; it’s very easy to imagine policies that improve the status of the urban poor in part by allowing them to leave the center city, but that movement makes the distribution of income in the center more unequal, not less. I might not have been clear in the post, but that was my point. The great challenge comes when trying to improve the incomes of the poor and keep them in the center city (without, you know, forcing them to stay.
Obviously, an important question is to what extent that should be our goal, and that question is at the heart of debates about gentrification.
I should note: I’m not at all fond of the notion that center cities just don’t work for middle income families. I’ve spent much of the last week banging my head against why that should be so and what the implications are. Unfortunately, it’s hard to conclude otherwise given current evidence.
September 7th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Well if the goal is to not have an urban culture where you have affluence living behind gates and doormen, next to housing projects, you need something resembling a middle class. That doesn’t necessarily mean a standard nuclear family middle class, but it wouldn’t hurt. Unfortunately, the breeder instinct tends to go hand-in-hand with suburban migration patterns.
This brings me back to my original point that in order to stem the perpetual middle class flight, the suburbs need to start looking more like cities (density, variety, convenience, access) and cities need to start looking like suburbs (quality schools, lower crime, less expensive). Part of me thinks that this will inevitably be addressed by Japan-style social trends toward people staying single longer, older people moving back to cities, lower birth rates, etc. But all these issues have their own demographic complications independent of their impact on middle class expansion.
At a certain point, New Delhi will overtake Tokyo as most populous city, and DC’s population growth will level off in a similar way, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A smaller but more affluent population can be just as economically viable as a big population of people making less money. But whether or not that’s sustainable is another matter.
I’m sure we’ll find out within the next decade or so, if not sooner.
September 7th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Man, monkey. I’m going to start letting you write this blog.
September 8th, 2007 at 8:27 am
If I didn’t have my hands full selling plushie porn to third-world teenagers on their $100 laptops, I’d take you up on the offer. But I don’t really think there’s a crossover audience for chimp smut and New Urbanism, although they both involve self-abuse to a great extent.
My agent will be in touch.