MIGRATION, SEGREGATION, AND THE GEOGRAPHIC CONCENTRATION OF POVERTY

We analyze patterns of African-American mobility and white mobility in U.S. cities to determine the causes of geographically concentrated po verty. Using a special tabulation of the Panel Study of Income Dynamic s that appends U.S. Census tract data to individual records, we analyz e the movement of poor and nonpoor people into and out of five types o f neighborhoods: white nonpoor; black nonpoor; black poor; black very poor; and racially and socioeconomically mixed neighborhoods. We find little support for the view that the geographic concentration of black poverty is caused by the out-migration of nonpoor blacks or that it s tems from the net movement of blacks into poverty. Rather our results suggest that the geographic concentration of poor blacks is caused by the residential segregation of African-Americans in urban housing mark ets.