Residential Preferences and Neighborhood Racial Segregation: A Test of the Schelling Segregation Model

• Published in: Demography Vol. 28; no. 1; pp. 1 - 19
• Main Author: Clark, W. A. V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago, IL Population Association of America 01-02-1991; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: African Americans; America; Attitude; Bgi / Prodig; Choice Behavior; Cities; Demographics; Demography; Estimation; European Continental Ancestry Group; Evaluation Studies as Topic; Gender discrimination; Hispanic Americans; Hispanics; Housing; Human geography; Humans; Model testing; Models, Psychological; Neighborhoods; Neighbourhoods; Parabolas; Population Dynamics - statistics & numerical data; Preferences; Prejudice; Race Relations; Races; Racial segregation; Reproducibility of Results; Residence; Residence Characteristics - statistics & numerical data; Residential segregation; Segregation; Social research; Statistical analysis; United States of America; Urban Population; White people; United States > US
• ISSN: 0070-3370; 1533-7790
• DOI: 10.2307/2061333

The debate over the role of the forces that create the patterns of residential separation has identified neighborhood preferences as one of the explanatory variables, but although we possess some empirical data on the nature of neighborhood racial preferences, the theoretical contributions have received only limited empirical evaluation. Among the theoretical statements, Schelling's model of the effects of small differences in preferences on residential patterns has provided a basic building block in our understanding of preferences, choices, and patterns. Several recent surveys of residential preferences provide the data with which to evaluate the underpinnings of the Schelling model. The preference/tolerance schedules that are derived from the data have a different functional form from that suggested by Schelling, but confirm the view that stable integrated equilibria are unlikely.