BLACK-POPULATION CONCENTRATION AND BLACK-WHITE INEQUALITY - EXPANDINGTHE CONSIDERATION OF PLACE AND SPACE EFFECTS

For over 40 years, sociologists have investigated the relationship bet ween the concentration of black population in a geographic area and th e relative economic standing of blacks in that area. These tests of wh at has come to be called the ''visibility-discrimination hypothesis'' have established that concentration of black population in an area is positively related to black-white inequality in that area. In this art icle, we extend the consideration of the place effects and consider sp ace effects by (1) tapping effects of normative structures in the spat ial context of a local area on black-white inequality in the local are a, (2) measuring the effects of the concentration of black population in adjacent areas on black-white inequality in the focal area, (3) con trolling for spatial dependence in inequality when Examining these pro cesses, and (4) examining the effects of these place and space factors on both occupational and wage inequality, so that their effects can b e compared between the two outcomes and effects on wage inequality can be assessed net of occupation effects. After testing our model with d ata on local labor market areas, we conclude by examining the implicat ions of our analysis for future studies of the visibility discriminati on hypothesis and for the general use of models that examine the effec ts of local place.