Changing Neighborhood Preferences across Income, Education and Age: Findings from the Metropolitan Study of Urban Inequality

William A.V. Clark, University of California, Los Angeles

Residential preferences and their role in creating neighborhood residential segregation continue to be a subject of debate in the ongoing discussions about race and residential outcomes in US metropolitan areas. Preferences are also relevant in the work on Schelling based preference and tolerance models of residential selection. The debates about the role of preferences are not easily resolved but by examining the way in which residential preferences change across incomes, education and age it is possible to show the way in which race and socio-economic status interact to create particular patterns of neighborhood preference in particular locations. In general there is a distinct shift to greater willingness to live in integrated settings for African Americans with increasing income but also a shift to "back up" choices of own race selections for neighborhood composition.