Change and continuity of income divide in the American Southeast: A metropolitan scale analyses, 2000-2014

- The large, diverse, segregated MSAs with highly educated people are the more income-divided compared to smaller MSAs with lesser educated.
- Income divide has increased during 2000-2014 in a majority of MSAs and economic growth comes with a cost.
- Asians and Hispanics are relatively better in 2014 than in 2000 when compared to overall population.
- Whites and Asians are relatively better-off whereas Blacks and Hispanics are the most income-divided and most segregated.

Changing racial/ethnic diversity along with economic growth have also drawn renewed public attention to growing income inequality and lack of economic well-being in the American society. This paper investigates one element of contemporary inequality - the income divide between the richest and the poorest population groups in the metropolises of the U.S. Southeast. This paper examines income divide across southern U.S. metropolises in 2000 and 2014, their change during 2000-2014, their variation across major races/ethnicities, and their relationships with important metropolitan characteristics such as diversity, intermixing, socio-economic status and built-environment attributes. Cartographic, ranking/matrix, and correlations analyses suggest that the largest, most diverse, most segregated, and those with a greater presence of better educated are the most income divided metropolises, whereas the small-to-mid-sized metropolises, with lesser educated population are less divided. The income divide has increased during 2000-2014 in a majority of these metropolises, and for all races/ethnicities, even though Whites and Asians are relatively better-off compared to overall population whereas Blacks and Hispanics lag behind.