Sprawl and Segregation

In case you were wondering:

Urban Decentralization and Income Inequality: Is Sprawl Associated with Rising Income Segregation Across Neighborhoods?

CHRISTOPHER H. WHEELER
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Research Division
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May 2006

FRB of St. Louis Working Paper No. 2006-037A


Abstract:
Existing research has found an inverse relationship between urban density and the degree of income inequality within metropolitan areas, suggesting that, as cities spread out, they become increasingly segregated by income. This paper examines this hypothesis using data covering more than 160000 block groups within 359 US metropolitan areas over the years 1980, 1990, and 2000. The findings indicate that income inequality - defined by the variance of the log household income distribution - does indeed rise significantly as urban density declines. This increase, however, is associated with rising inequality within block groups as cities spread out. The extent of income variation exhibited between different block groups, by contrast, shows virtually no association with population density. There is, accordingly, little evidence that sprawl is systematically associated with greater residential segregation of households by income.

This too:

Land Use Regulation and Residential Segregation: Does Zoning Matter?

CHRISTOPHER R. BERRY
University of Chicago - Department of Economics

Abstract:
Critics of zoning have attributed to it much of the responsibility for the persistent and severe patterns of racial and economic segregation that characterize urban America. Yet, little empirical evidence has been produced to demonstrate the degree to which observed patterns of residential segregation are attributable to zoning. This article explores that question by comparing patterns of residential segregation in Houston, the nation's only unzoned large city, and Dallas, a similar zoned city. Houston's unique system of nonzoning is described. The index of dissimilarity is used to measure segregation by race, tenure, and housing type, and a variation of the index is developed to measure segregation by income. No significant differences in residential segregation are evident between the two cities. These results suggest that, absent zoning, private voluntary institutions produce nearly identical patterns of residential segregation.