In 1968, Harvard economist John Kain identified the “spatial mismatch” problem demonstrating that “housing segregation prevented Chicago’s blacks from following jobs out to the suburbs” (Dreir, Place Matters, p. 5.) “Exclusionary zoning often prevents low-wage workers from moving closer” to “entry level jobs with moderate education and skill requirements.” (Id. at 6.) “…Residents of high-poverty neighborhoods are stigmatized by [potential] employers.” (Id. at 9) Well-paying jobs are less likely to be offered in lower income neighborhoods, reducing both absolute and relative economic mobility. (Isaacs, J., Sawhill. I. and Haskins, R., Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well? The Economic Mobility Project: Washington, D.C. (2007), p. XX.) Segregation also reduces general trust that, in turn, results in less social capital and community engagement (Kleit, R.G., Neighborhood Segregation, Personal Networks, and Access to Social Resources, in Segregation: The Rising Costs for America. Carr, J.H. & N. K. Kutty (Eds.) Routledge: New York, NY Rothwell, 2011, p. XX.) Less social capital in turn hurts job prospects because “neighborhoods provide networks of crucial information about jobs. More than half of all jobs are found through friends and relatives, not through want ads.” (Drier, Place Matters, p. 9.) Racial segregation causes disparate access to quality education, undermining the intent of Brown vs. Board of Education and resulting in lower academic achievement in urban schools (Rothstein, R., Why Our Schools Are Segregated, In Faces of Poverty, 10(8), 50-55 (2013a); Rothstein, R., Misteaching History on Racial Segregation, School Administrator, December, 2013, p. XX;. Orfield, G., Lee, C., Why Segregation Matters: Poverty and Educational Inequality in The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University: Boston, MA (2005), p. XX; see also Rumberg, R.W. and Willms, D., The Impact of Racial and Ethnic Segregation on the
There has been a large increase in the last twenty years in the fraction of national income that accrues to the top 20%, and a more modest increase in that accruing to the middle class. A better measure of inequality in terms of upward mobility and for its effect on housing costs is middle class income inequality defined as the percentage of income accruing to families with income between the 25th and 75th percentiles of income. That gap widened from $29,478.50 in 2000 to $45,305.50 in 2012, which is still $39,303.64 in 2012 dollars. (Chetty, et al., Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility, NBER Working Paper No. 19844 (January 2014), p. XX.) Widening income inequality adds another dimension to the negative effects of income segregation. “In a society characterized by severe economic segregation, the well-intentioned helping acts of affluent people [for each other] can exacerbate economic inequalities” because “…middle-, and upper-income communities have robust social networks that link residents to valuable opportunities.” (Dreier, Place Matters, p. 10.) “One study, described as ‘certainly the most comprehensive analysis of intergenerational mobility in the contemporary U.S.,’ found that mobility was lowest in metro areas with high rates of concentrated poverty, sprawl, and weak public transit systems.” (Dreier, Place Matters, p. 12.) Income segregation and the decrease in economic mobility have a variety of sources (Bluestone, B., & Harrison, B., Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment and the Dismantling of Basic Industry Basic Books: Boston (1982), p. XX; Sassen, S., Cities in a World Economy. Pine Forge Press: Thousand Oaks, CA Sassen, 1994, p. XX; Sassen, S., The Global City: Strategic Site/New Frontier. In Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City, E.F. Isin (Ed). London: Routledge (2000), p. XX.) Yet common land use