Political and racial neighborhood sorting: How is it changing?

It is well known that the racial composition of a neighborhood influences who chooses to live there. Less established is whether the political party mix of the neighborhood influences neighborhood choice. In this paper, we study racial and political neighborhood sorting, their interaction, and how t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public choice 2024, Vol.198 (1-2), p.161-187
Main Authors: Ihlanfeldt, Keith, Yang, Cynthia Fan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dominance
Economics
Economics and Finance
Ethnicity
Home ownership
Neighborhoods
Political identity
Political parties
Political Science
Politics
Public Finance
Race
Residential segregation
Segregation
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Summary:It is well known that the racial composition of a neighborhood influences who chooses to live there. Less established is whether the political party mix of the neighborhood influences neighborhood choice. In this paper, we study racial and political neighborhood sorting, their interaction, and how they are changing over time. Our methodology involves the estimation of a conditional logit model with data on hundreds of thousands of homebuyers whose race and political affiliation are known. The neighborhood choices of homeowners categorized by race and party are explained by a typology that defines neighborhoods by their dominance of a particular party and race/ethnicity. We find that both Democrats and Republicans prefer living in a neighborhood that matches their race and political party, but both show an increased willingness to live in a non-matched neighborhood over the past decade. Our results are encouraging, suggesting that both political and racial/ethnicity neighborhood segregation may subside in the future.
ISSN:0048-5829
1573-7101
DOI:10.1007/s11127-023-01120-6