Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from Census 2000

Modest Progress: The Narrowing Spatial Mismatch between Blacks and Jobs in the 1990s

During the latter half of the twentieth century, changes in the location of employment opportunities within metropolitan areas increased the physical distance between predominantly black residential areas and important employment centers.1 Although black residential locations have remained fairly centralized and concentrated in older urban neighborhoods, employment has continuously decentralized toward suburbs and exurbs. Many social scientists argue that this “spatial mismatch” between black residential locations and employment opportunities at least partly explains the stubbornly inferior labor market outcomes experienced by African Americans.2 The difficulties of reverse commuting in many metropolitan areas, coupled with the fact that a high proportion of blacks do not own cars,3 may render inaccessible many jobs for which black workers are suited.4 119 Modest Progress: The Narrowing Spatial Mismatch between Blacks and Jobs in the 1990s S T E V E N R A P H A E L A N D M I C H A E L A . S T O L L 6 1. We use the terms “black” and “African American” interchangeably. 2. For recent and extensive reviews of the empirical research on the spatial mismatch hypothesis see Ihlanfeldt and Sjoquist (1998) and Pugh (1998). 3. See Raphael and Stoll (2001) for an analysis of the affect of racial differences in car ownership rates on racial labor market inequality. In 1995, 24 percent of black households had no car, compared to 5 percent of white households and 12 percent of Latino households. 4. There is an extensive literature on why and how space matters in employment. It establishes that the time and monetary costs of travel and information limit the distances workers are willing or able to commute to get to work, especially for low-skill or young workers. Public transit increases the time cost of travel, as does how far workers must commute to employment opportunities.Purchasingandmaintainingacar,aswellaspayingforgasandinsurance,increases the monetary cost of travel. Furthermore, distance from employment opportunities raises the costs of getting information about these jobs. As any of these costs rise, workers will be less willing to travel an additional mile. See Stoll (1999) and Holzer, Ihlanfeldt, and Sjoquist (1994). At the same time, several developments during the 1990s suggest that the geographic isolation of minority communities from employment opportunities may have lessened. The economic boom in the late 1990s brought tremendous economic and employment growth—so much so that the hemorrhaging of central city employment centers that characterized the previous four decades slowed and, in some cases, reversed.5 With talk of the revival of central cities, many middle- and upper-income households began to repopulate older urban neighborhoods, bringing in consumer dollars and businesses that cater to the middle and upper class. With this revival came talk of the “competitive advantage of the inner city,” in which poor, distressed, and predominantly minority urban neighborhoods were seen as strategic areas for capital investment because of their underserved retail markets and geographic proximity to central business districts, among other factors.6 In fact, in some instances, the development and repopulation of these neighborhoods proceeded to the point where many observers of urban affairs increasingly turned their attention to the potentially negative consequences of gentrification.7 Together, these trends suggest that employment may have moved closer to black residential locations during the 1990s. Moreover, several economic trends indicate that black residential mobility may have increased. First, in largepartbecauseoftheeconomicboom,blackunemploymentratesdropped torecordlowsduringthedecade,adevelopmentthatislikelytohaveincreased housing demand among black households.8 Second, black homeownership rates also increased, a development that likely indicates greater black representation in suburban communities.9 These factors are largely consistent with reports that residential segregation of African Americans and whites declined by modest amounts in the United States over the 1990s.10 Thus central city job growth, coupled with black residential mobility, may have ensured that African Americans’ spatial proximity to jobs improved in 120 Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll 5. See U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2000) for evidence on central city and suburban employment growth during the 1990s. 6. See Porter (1995) for a thorough discussion of this argument and the entire volume 24 of Review of Black Political Economy (1995) for critics of this approach to inner-city development. 7. For research on the affect of gentrification on the poor, see Vigdor (2002). 8. In 1999, the black unemployment rate was 8 percent. Although this was nearly double the national unemployment rate, the annual rate of 8 percent is the lowest recorded for black unemployment...