Migration patterns and the growth of high-poverty neighborhoods, 1970-1990

Using geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article e xamines why the number of high-poverty neighborhoods in American cities has increased since 1970. The main findings are (1) the migration of the nonpo or away from moderately poor neighborhoods has been a key process in formin g new high-poverty neighborhoods, although in the early 1980s increasing po verty rates were also important; and (2) African-Americans have moved into predominately white neighborhoods at a pace sufficient to increase their nu mbers there, but neighborhoods with increasing black populations tend to lo se white population rapidly. Implications for theories of poor neighborhood s are discussed.