Metropolitan influences on migration into poor and nonpoor neighborhoods

Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and three decennial US censuses are used to examine the influence of metropolitan-area characteristics on black and white households’ propensity to move into poor versus nonpoor neighborhoods. We find that a nontrivial portion of the variance in the odds of moving to a poor rather to a nonpoor neighborhood exists between metropolitan areas. Net of established individual-level predictors of inter-neighborhood migration, black and white households are more likely to move to a poor or extremely poor tract rather than to a nonpoor tract in metropolitan areas containing many poor neighborhoods and a paucity of recently-built housing in nonpoor areas. Blacks are especially likely to move to a poor tract in metropolitan areas characterized by high levels of racial residential segregation and in which poor tracts have a sizeable concentration of blacks. White households are more likely to move to a poor than to a nonpoor tract in metropolitan areas that have comparatively few African Americans.