Neighborhood Social Mix:

Theory, Evidence, and Implications for Policy and Planning

George C. Galster

Clarence Hilberry Professor of Urban Affairs

Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Wayne State University

656 West Kirby St. Detroit, MI 48202 USA

email George_Galster@wayne.edu

Paper presented at the 2009 International Workshop at Technion University:

”Planning for / with People”

Presented at Haifa, Israel June, 2009

[To be included in forthcoming book by same title

Edited by Naomi Carmon and Susan Fainstein]

Draft updated January, 2010

ABSTRACT

There has been a longstanding concern by planners to encourage

neighborhoods containing the appropriate “social mix” of residents. Indeed, currently

throughout Western Europe and North America there are a variety of public policy

initiatives in effects designed to achieve neighborhood diversity of residents of one sort

or another. This essay casts critical perspectives on the issue of neighborhood social

mix, with the purpose of clarifying concepts, policy rationales, causal mechanisms, and

evidentiary bases as a means of drawing practical lessons for planners. It concludes

that there is a sufficient evidentiary base to justify the goal of a neighborhood social mix

policy: (1) on equity grounds that works toward avoiding high concentrations of

disadvantaged individuals and promotes residential diversity of groups, preferably of

only modestly dissimilar socioeconomic status; and (2) on efficiency grounds, but only if

the concentration of disadvantage stays relatively low in all neighborhoods. The

equitable and efficient means of achieving this goal are highly contingent on the

particulars of the metropolitan, local, and group contexts, however. Moreover,

programmatic means to achieve social mixing to which the disadvantaged respond

voluntarily are preferred.

Acknowledgements: This manuscript has greatly benefited from commentary from

Roland Atkinson, Michael Darcy, Norman Fainstein, Derek Hyra, Mickey Lauria, Peter

Marcuse, Phil Thompson, Ivan Tosics, and Larry Vale.

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Introduction

Progressive thinkers about the residential composition of neighborhoods have

long held that it was desirable to have at least a modicum of population socioeconomic

diversity (Gans, 1961; Sarkissian, 1976). The clearest and most systematic early

treatises espousing this position appeared in Britain at the end of the 19th century. This

so-called “Garden Cities movement” arose in response to the highly segregated and

wretched neighborhood conditions experienced by poor, rural migrants flocking to the

burgeoning British cities. It promulgated places where all classes could reside as

positively interacting neighbors, a “living tapestry,” if you will. A half-century later, an

analogous communal vision formed the foundation for the New Towns movement in both

the U.S. and the U.K.

Similar sentiments still undergird a rich palette of official pronouncements and

planning initiatives on both sides of the Atlantic. Recent reviews of policy documents

indicate that the segregation of different population groups is a central concern of

governments across the European Union, both original and new members alike

(Andersen, 2002, 2003, 2006; Musterd, 2003; Musterd, Ostendorf and de Vos, 2003;

Kleinhans, 2004; Norris and Shiels, 2004; Andersson and Musterd, 2005; Berube, 2005;

Meen et al. 2005, Pennix, 2006; Tunstall and Fenton, 2006; VROM, 2006). The issues

of race and class segregation are typically treated with more official circumspection in

the U.S., though President Barack Obama’s campaign platform included an explicit set

of proposals to deal with spatially concentrated urban poverty (Obama, 2008).

A wide range of programmatic mechanisms have been recently employed to

combat socio-spatial segregation and prevent the formation of new clusters of deprived

households. These programs fall under the rubric of “social mix” in Europe and “mixed

income communities” or “poverty deconcentration” in the U.S. Programmatic examples

include: urban regeneration measures that replace concentrations of social housing with

more diverse housing stocks (UK, NL, US); social housing management and tenant

allocation reform (FR, IR, NL); tenant-based housing allowances (FR, US); and land-use

planning rules requiring mixed developments (UK, some US locales); see: Murie and

Musterd (2004), Berube (2005), Briggs (2005), Musterd and Andersson (2005), Norris

(2006).

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Despite its longstanding, exalted place in the pantheon of planning nostrums, the

goal of “socially mixed neighborhoods” has been recently challenged on conceptual and

empirical grounds by a wide range of European and American scholars; see: Atkinson

and Kintrea (2000, 2001), Ostendorf, Musterd and de Vos ( 2001), Kearns (2002),

Musterd (2002, 2003), Musterd, Ostendorf and de Vos (2003), Meen et al. (2005),

Galster (2005), Delorenzi (2006), Joseph (2006), Joseph, Chaskin, and Webber (2006),

Cheshire (2007), Van Kempen et al. (2009) and the set of responses to McCulloch

(2001) in the same issue of Environment and Planning A., pp. 1335-1369. It behooves

planners to take these challenges seriously, and not take the pursuit of social mix as a

matter of faith.

This paper aims to assist planners in this quest. It synthesizes and extends the

challenges to social mix and assesses comprehensively the empirical evidence from

many disciplines and nations as it interfaces with the topic considering both the goal of

social mix and the means to achieve it. It tries to clarify what questions we need to ask

and the degree to which answers seem certain regarding concepts, policy rationales,

and causal mechanisms, and then draws appropriate, pragmatic implications for

planners.

The Slippery Concept of Social Mix

Neighborhood homogeneity easy to define in principle and make operational in

practice. But as soon as one moves away from pure homogeneity, three thorny

definitional issues arise (Tunstall and Fenton; 2006: 25-26; Kleinhans, 2004):

• Composition: On what basis(es) are we mixing people: ethnicity, race, religion,

immigrant status, income, housing tenure…all, or some of the above?

• Concentration: What is the amount of mixing in question? Which amounts of which

groups comprise the ideal mix, or are minimally required to produce the desired

outcomes?

• Scale: Over what level(s) of geography should the relevant mix be measured? Does

mixing at different spatial scales involve different causal processes and yield different

outcomes?

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Many different combinations of the above elements characterize different aspects of

social mixing policies in different national contexts, though often not explicitly. Indeed,

“social mix” is an intrinsically vague, slippery term; it is typically used to mean different

things by different planners and policymakers. Planners must be precise and explicit in

specifying the parameters of these three aspects of social mix before they can evaluate

evidence in a precise way or recommend specific planning policies and practices. Below

I will examine the evidence base related to all three dimensions of social mix.

The Rationale for Social Mix as a Goal

Policy documents and the scholarly literature are replete with a wide range of

objectives for a neighborhood social mix strategy. A comprehensive summary has been

provided by Wood (2003), which suggest the following categories and examples:

• Developmental Objectives: to gain planning permission or reduce local

opposition to proposed developments; to prevent or reduce negative real estate

consequences following from concentration of disadvantaged households; to

gain a variety of commercial and retail activities in an area

• Social Objectives: to promote interaction, mutual understanding, networks, and

cohesion among neighbors that differ on one or more key characteristics; to

enhance the collective efficacy and political power of the place; to provide social

inclusion, positive role models and mechanisms of support for the disadvantaged

• Financial Objectives: to provide cross-subsidies for lower-income residents; to

reduce future social service, building operating, and public infrastructure costs

• Housing and Neighborhood Quality Objectives: to provide a mix of dwelling sizes,

types, and tenures to encourage residents to remain in the development when

life-cycle moves occur; to improve the safety, appearance, and neighborliness of

the area

• Sustainability Objectives: to provide a diversity of proximate residential and non-

residential activities that reduce energy consumption and environmental

degradation; to encourage more efficient management and maintenance for the

long-run; to avoid place-based stigmatization

4

Though such a lexicon has its value, important insights can be gained by re-

framing the rationales for neighborhood social mixing in terms of who, ultimately, is the

desired beneficiary of the policy. I would suggest this tripartite classification of potential

beneficiaries:

• Disadvantaged Families, Adults, and Children (potentially defined according to

either tenure, economic, racial-ethnic, national-origin, and/or religious status,

depending on context)

• Advantaged Families, Adults, and Children

• Society (all advantaged and disadvantaged individuals aggregated, though not

necessarily benefitting equally or weighted equally by cultural norms)

I assume that the typical reader here will not be a planner whose goal it is to help the

advantaged exclusively. 1 Thus, I will only amplify on the first and the third, which

hereafter I will refer to the “equity” and the “efficiency” rationales, which I now define.

Equity and Efficiency Rationales for Social Mixing

I specify that equity is improved if any social mix policy increases absolutely the

well-being of the disadvantaged group in society. Given the above framework, if society

wished to pursue a policy of mixing advantaged with disadvantaged individuals in order

to benefit the latter group, either of two necessary conditions would appertain.2

Disadvantaged individuals must either: (1) lose well-being by residing with other

members of their group (at least past some point of concentration) and/or (2) gain well-

being by residing with members of the advantaged group (at least past some point of

concentration). Put differently, neighborhood mix policy can be justified on equity

grounds favoring the disadvantaged if and only if the disadvantaged are subjected to

either: (1) negative social externalities from disadvantaged neighbors; (2) positive social

externalities from advantaged neighbors; and/or (3) stigmatization/resource restrictions

because their percentage in the neighborhood is past a threshold.

1 I recognize that there have been several critical writings claiming that social mix strategies essentially benefit the advantaged by displacing the disadvantaged from valuable land; see Smith and Stovall (2008) and Imbroscio (2008). 2 An unusually explicit articulation of such a position can be found in Andersson (2004).

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I specify that efficiency is improved if a social mix policy improves the aggregate

amount of well-being summed across all members of society, with the well-being of

certain individuals perhaps weighted differentially (if implicitly) according to prevailing

cultural norms. This standard does not necessarily require Pareto-improvements

(wherein some individuals gain and none suffer a loss of well-being), though such would

be sufficient. It does, however, require adherence to the Hicks-Kaldor compensation

principle. I.e., a policy is efficient if the “winners” could, in principle, compensate the

“losers” sufficiently to hold them harmless and yet still be better off themselves.

I recognize that planners do not think often of efficiency criteria; nevertheless,

they are worthy of consideration. In a context where neo-liberal ideology is prevalent,

efficiency criteria may well take precedence in the minds of key decision-makers with

whom planners interface. In other words, the political feasibility of the proposal may be

enhanced substantially if its efficiency can be demonstrated. Thus, to distinguish the two

standards, a social mix policy that increases the well-being of the advantaged a great

deal and decreases the well-being of the disadvantaged a small amount can potentially

be efficient (unless the well-being of the disadvantaged is heavily weighted by society),

even though it is not equitable within our framework. This is not to suggest that

efficiency and equity are inherently contradictory or impossible to achieve

simultaneously.

The efficiency-based justification for social mix requires considerations of the

mechanisms of social mix neighborhood effects not relevant in the equity-based

justification. Specifically, we must distinguish between neighborhood effects that occur

because of social interactions within the neighborhood and those that occur because of

the perceptions and actions of those outside of the neighborhood. First, because

efficiency requires us to consider the well-being of both disadvantaged and advantaged

individuals, a more comprehensive analysis of potential intra-neighborhood social

externalities is required. This raises to relevance the possibility that negative social

externalities imposed by disadvantaged individuals on their advantaged neighbors

outweigh the positive social externalities that may flow in the opposite direction. If such

were the case, it is easy to imagine a social weighting scheme (such as utilitarianism)

that would register the highest values when the two groups were completely segregated

residentially. Second, if only the extra-neighborhood process of stigmatization/resource

restriction were operative, we would not need to concern ourselves with the potential

zero-sum or negative-sum aspects associated with intra-neighborhood social

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interactions between disadvantaged and advantaged groups. On the contrary, changing

the social mix by reducing the share of disadvantaged in a neighborhood so that the

stigma/restriction is removed would provide a net gain for the well-being of both types of

individuals living in the formerly stigmatized neighborhood.

Implications of Equity and Efficiency Rationales for Standards of Evidence

What does the foregoing suggest about what sort of empirical evidence would

provide sufficient proof that social mixing could be justified on equity and/or efficiency

grounds? In the case of the equity-based conditions, the evidence must show that

outcomes associated with greater well-being now or in the future (e.g., income, labor

force participation, educational attainments) for disadvantaged individuals are either: (1)

positively correlated with a higher percentage of advantaged neighbors and/or (2)

negatively correlated with a higher percentage of other disadvantaged neighbors, all else

equal.

In the case of efficiency-based conditions, the sufficient evidentiary base must be

considerably more comprehensive and nuanced, with attention paid to the presumed

underlying mechanism of neighborhood effect. First, consider if intra-neighborhood

social interactions were the presumed mechanism. In this case, not only does the

former equity-based criterion continue to apply for disadvantaged individuals, but the

converse must also apply for advantaged individuals. That is, studies must be based on

observations of advantaged individuals in different neighborhood contexts and find that

they are neither: (1) significantly harmed by the negative social externalities generated

by disadvantaged neighbors, nor (2) significantly benefited by the positive social

externalities generated by other advantaged neighbors. Only if such evidence is gained

about how both advantaged and disadvantaged individuals are affected by social

interactions associated with neighborhood mix can we be confident that a wide range of

normative social weighting schemes would yield neighborhood mixing as the most

efficient outcome.

Second, consider if extra-neighborhood stigmatization/resource restrictions were

the presumed mechanism. In this case, the statistical evidence would not need to be

stratified by group insofar as both advantaged and disadvantaged individuals were

harmed by the stigmatization and other institutional/resource constraints associated with

higher percentages of disadvantaged residents in the neighborhood. Here the evidence

must show that outcomes associated with greater well-being (such as income or

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employment) for a combined sample of both groups are negatively (positively) correlated

with percentages of disadvantaged (advantaged) in the neighborhood, at least past

some thresholds(s).

The foregoing may strike some as overly pedantic, given that planners most

likely try to pursue polices that simultaneously are equitable and efficient. Indeed, we

should strive to achieve both when we can. Nevertheless, it is useful to distinguish them

as alternative goals, and to urge that planners should be explicit about what their goals

for social mix are, because:

• The evidence base may be supportive of one goal being achieved more than

another

• The more desirable programmatic approaches will differ depending on goals

specified

• It will force planners to determine how and why a particular plan for social mix is

likely to achieve the desired effects (i.e., to be clear about the presumed

mechanisms of change)

• If outcomes are equitable but not efficient, it will help planners to anticipate

opposition from advantaged residents who may be adversely affected, and

devise mechanisms to, ideally, hold them harmless

The Effects of Social Mix on the Disadvantaged: The Evidence Base

The prior section showed that sufficient grounds for social mix on the basis of

equity arguments would be provided by evidence that disadvantaged individuals are

harmed by disadvantaged neighbors (at least past some threshold) and/or benefited by

advantaged neighbors (at least past some threshold). In this section I review evidence

of various sorts relevant to establishing these sufficient conditions, after an overview of

the potential mechanisms through which the composition of a neighborhood might affect

individual residents.

Neighborhood effects may transpire through a variety of causal mechanisms that

can occur either through social interactions within the neighborhood and/or by actions of

others located outside of the neighborhood; for extended discussion, see especially

Jencks and Mayer (1990), Duncan, Connell and Klebanov (1997), Gephart (1997),

Friedrichs, (1998), Dietz (2002), Sampson, Morenoff, and Gannon-Rowley (2002), and

Ioannides and Loury (2004). The potential intra-neighborhood social mechanisms

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include social norms/collective control, peers/role models, networks, social solidarity,

competition, and relative deprivation. The extra-neighborhood mechanism of relevance

here is stigmatization / institutional resource restriction: when important institutional,

governmental or market actors negatively stereotype all residents of a neighborhood

and/or reduce the flows of resources flowing into it because of its population

composition. This extra-neighborhood mechanism might become operational as the

percentage of the disadvantaged group in the neighborhood exceeds the threshold of

where they are perceived by these external actors as “dominant.” In this fashion, the

share of disadvantaged residents may (through the impact on externals’ perceptions)

indirectly influence not only the well-being of other disadvantaged but also advantaged

residents in the stigmatized neighborhood.3 While current empirical evidence is not

decisive, it is strongly suggestive of several intra- and extra-neighborhood mechanisms

described above (Van Kempen, 1997; Dietz, 2002; Sampson, Morenoff and Gannon-

Rowley, 2002; Ellen and Turner, 2003; Galster, 2005), as I will amplify below.

Peer Influences, Role Models and Networks among Disadvantaged Neighbors

There have been numerous studies that have examined in detail the social

relationships of youth and adults from low-income neighborhoods. One of the most

notable because of its sophisticated efforts to avoid statistical bias is Case and Katz’s

(1991) investigation of youth in low-income Boston neighborhoods. They find that

neighborhood peer influences and role modeling among youth are strong predictors of a

variety of negative behaviors, including crime, substance abuse, and lack of labor force

participation. For more evidence on negative role models and peer effects in

disadvantaged neighborhoods, see Diehr et al (1993), South and Baumer (2000) and

Ginther, Haveman and Wolfe (2000).4 This body of work suggests that negative social

externalities are frequently being generated among disadvantaged neighbors, especially

youths. However, it is not definitive about the extent to which such negative socialization

would be diminished, or replaced by positive socialization, were more higher-income

youth to be present.

3 There are other extra-neighborhood effects possible, such as residence-job spatial mismatch, but they are not considered here because they do not involve causal variations according to social mix of the neighborhood. I also recognize that intra-neighborhood social processes are vitally contextualized by the local institutional infrastructure available, but variations in this dimension are overlooked here for simplicity. 4 See the reviews in Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn (2000), Friedrichs, Galster and Musterd (2003), and the recent work of Oberwittler (2004).

9

The lack of social ties with employed and better-educated people is also an often

observed characteristic of disadvantaged neighborhood residents (Tiggs, Brown, and

Green, 1998; Fernandez and Harris, 1992; Pinkster, 2008). Several studies from both

the U.S. and Europe support the hypothesis that these limited social networks reduce

economic opportunities for the disadvantaged. As illustrations, Bertrand, Luttmer and

Mullainathan (2000) found welfare participation by individuals in the U.S. was enhanced

not only by geographic proximity to others on welfare, but especially if these proximate

others on welfare spoke the individual’s language. Buck (2001) used British Household

Panel Study data to ascertain a positive relationship between the probability that

individuals have no close friends employed and neighborhood unemployment rates or

disadvantage index scores. Farwick (2004) found that Turkish immigrants’ contacts with

native Germans in a Koln neighborhood declined rapidly once the percentage of Turks in

the apartment complex exceeded 20 percent, which, in turn, increased their chances of

having an unstable employment history. Pinkster’s (2008) study of networks in deprived

neighborhoods in The Hague (NL) discovered that localized social ties helped low-

income residents in the short-term find jobs but over the longer-term locked them in to

these dead-end options and adversely affected their work ethic and expectations.

Pinkster suggested that one possible explanation for these effects was that processes of

social control limited residents’ ability and willingness to interact with residents in the

other groups and to look for opportunities outside of the neighborhood (Pinkster, 2008).

Social Interactions among Disadvantaged and Advantaged Neighbors

Though it thus seems likely that negative influences from peer groups and role

models, and resource-poor and locally constrained networks help perpetuate individual

disadvantage in disadvantaged neighborhoods, it does not necessarily follow that all

social relationships of the disadvantaged will be significantly altered by mere residence

near advantaged individuals in mixed communities. Indeed, there is a substantial and

consistent literature from both sides of the Atlantic indicating that social mix is insufficient

to induce substantial social interactions between groups that may enhance employment

and other resource networks for the disadvantaged.

Several U.S.-based studies have investigated this topic in the context of socially

mixed neighborhoods created by court-ordered racial desegregation plans for public

housing (Briggs, 1997, 1998; Rosenbaum, 1995), public housing revitalization schemes

(Schill, 1997; Kleit, 2001a, 2001b, 2002), or rental housing voucher experiments

10

(Popkin, Harris, and Cunningham, 2002; Rosenbaum, Harris and Denton, 2003).

Several European-based studies have probed this topic as part of restructuring of social

housing estates (Atkinson and Kintrea, 1998; Jupp, 1999; Kleinhans, 2000; Cole and

Goodchild, 2001; Van Beckhoven and Van Kempen, 2003; Duyvendak, Kleinhans, and

Veldboer, 2000) or post-war neighborhoods (Blokland-Potters, 1998; Pinkster, 2008).5

In sum, these studies consistently showed that the intra-neighborhood social

relationships among members of different economic groups were quite limited, even

within the same neighborhood or housing complex. Members of the lower-status group

often did not take advantage of propinquity to broaden their “weak ties” and enhance the

resource-producing potential of their networks, instead often restricting their networks to

nearby members of their own group or to those remaining in the “old neighborhood.”

This suggests that social networking may be a powerful neighborhood force among

members of a given group, but less so in an inter-group context, where perhaps the role

model and social control mechanism operate more strongly.

A few studies warrant special note because of their nuanced implications for

neighborhood effect mechanisms. Rosenbaum (1991, 1995, et al. 2002) has provided a

series of studies related to black families living in public housing in concentrated poverty

neighborhoods who were assisted (with rental vouchers and counseling) in finding

apartments in predominantly white-occupied neighborhoods of Chicago and its suburbs

as part of a court-ordered remedy for the Gautreaux public housing discrimination suit.

Though he provides one of the most optimistic portraits of the many benefits that such

moves can provide to black adults and their children6, he does not find a great deal of

social interchange or networking between these new in-movers and the original

residents. Instead, Rosenbaum (1991) stresses instead the importance of middle-class

role models and social norms in suburban environments for generating positive

outcomes for those participating in the Gautreaux Program.

Galster et al. (2008) provide a methodologically sophisticated study of the effects

of both disadvantaged and advantaged neighbors on individual earnings of less-

advantaged (part-time employed) adults using Swedish urban data. In the case of men

who were not employed full time, it was the neighborhood with the highest possible

share of middle-income neighbors that was most conducive to their earning more. The

5 See the reviews in Kleinhans (2004) and Kleit (2008). 6 Though note that this study only analyzed people who self-selected to participate in the Gautreaux program, and results thus are likely not representative.

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fact that even a few low-income neighbors eroded these benefits suggested to the

authors that a negative role modeling or peer effect was transpiring here. Replacing

middle-income with high-income neighbors also had negative impacts on these less-

advantaged males, implying that the former provided positive role models but the latter

did not, perhaps because the social distance between the groups was too great for

social interactions. The social norm model of interaction was not supported by their

findings, because no minimum threshold of low-income neighbors was observed past

which their negative impacts began and because such would imply no distinctions

between shares of middle- and high-income neighbors under the assumption that both

provided comparable norms and social controls.

Thus, even though negative peers and role models, and limited, resource-poor

networks might be part of the problem facing disadvantaged individuals living in deprived

neighborhoods, it is not at all clear that social mixing will prove the panacea. As

summarized by Kleit (2008:254) in her thorough review of the literature, “While proximity

aids in the creation of relationships [with others not like them], perceived and real

demographic differences can be barriers to forming more than superficial relationships

across groups.” Nevertheless, if the social gap is not too great, role model and perhaps

other benefits can accrue to disadvantaged residents from their better-off neighbors.

Relative Deprivation: Might Social Mix Harm the Disadvantaged?

Relative deprivation is important not only as an indicator of psychological well-

being of the disadvantaged group, but as a predictor of potential criminal behavior

(Kawachi, Kennedy and Wilkinson, 1999). It is noteworthy that studies of social

interactions among different income groups in mixed U.S. neighborhoods (cited above)

does not reveal compelling evidence of relative deprivation or inter-group competition

that would harm disadvantaged neighbors. However, there are enough hints of this

effect in a few European studies to make it risky to reject this mechanism completely, at

least for some selected outcomes.

A suggestion of a social conflict-type of neighborhood mechanism is embodied in

the finding by Sampson and Groves (1989) in Britain that neighborhood ethnic

heterogeneity was associated with more unsupervised peer groups and lack of

participation in local organizations. McCulloch’s (2001) analysis of British data found

that disadvantaged women were more likely to experience a variety of negative

outcomes if they lived in affluent areas, indicative of relative deprivation or competition

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mechanisms. This is relationship consistent with two other British studies that found that

health issues for poor individuals were more problematic when they lived in more

affluent areas (Duncan and Jones, 1995; Shouls et al., 1996). Oberwittler (2007)

observed that German adolescents living in households receiving welfare recipients

scored substantially higher on an index of relative deprivation when they resided in

neighborhoods with the lowest overall welfare receipt rates. Finally, in the Atkinson and

Kintrea (2004) study of key informant opinions in Glasgow, some espoused the relative

deprivation consequence of extreme social mixing within neighborhoods.

Neighborhood Stigmatization

On both sides of the Atlantic, what little evidence on this mechanism exists tends

to be idiosyncratic, qualitative, and (with one exception) hard to evaluate or quantify.

Nevertheless, case study evidence suggests that place-based stigmatization is an oft-

occurring process in Western Europe. The work of Wacquant (1993), Power (1997),

Taylor (1998), Atkinson and Kintrea (1998), Forrest and Kearns (1999), Dean and

Hastings (2000), Hastings and Dean (2003), Martin and Watkinson (2003), Hastings

(2004) and Permentier (2009) is noteworthy. It does not, of course, help us to quantify

the degree to which neighborhood stigmatization diminishes the life-chances of residents

or restricts the various public or private resources or institutions flowing into these areas.

To my knowledge, only one study has attempted statistically to relate measured

perceptions of key actors about neighborhoods to socioeconomic or demographic

indicators measured in those places. Permentier, Bolt and van Ham (2007) asked

households and real estate agents to evaluate on multiple grounds a variety of

neighborhoods in their city of Utrecht in which they did not live. They found that

neighborhood reputations were significantly correlated with their socio-economic

characteristics, while their physical and functional features were of less importance.

Unfortunately, these authors did not test for threshold points where the perceptions

dramatically changed in response to neighborhood social mix. Perhaps even more

crucially, it is unclear (but generally discouraging) the degree to which the reputation of a

long-stigmatized neighborhood can change as a consequence of more advantaged

households being added to the social mix (Cole et al., 1997; Pawson et al., 2000;

Beekman et al., 2001; Hellerman and Wassenberg, 2004; Van Kempen et al., 2009).

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The Evidence from U.S. Social Experiments

It is sometimes possible to observe non-market, exogenous interventions into

households’ residential locations that allow valid deductions about neighborhood effects.

The Gautreaux (Chicago) and Yonkers (NY) court-ordered, public housing racial-ethnic

desegregation programs (Rosenbaum, 1995; Rubinowitz and Rosenbaum, 2000; Briggs,

1997, 1998; Fauth, Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn, 2003a, b; DeLuca et al., forthcoming)

are illustrative. Evaluations of these programs revealed generally strong effects of

neighborhoods in several dimensions, though underlying causal mechanisms were

generally not probed. Recent evaluations of long-term impacts on Gautreaux (black)

mothers found, for example, that residence in neighborhoods with highest percentages

of black and low-income residents was associated with significantly greater welfare

usage, lower employment rates, and lower earnings. Sons of Gautreaux participants

who moved far from their original, high-crime neighborhoods were less likely to run afoul

of the criminal justice system, especially in matters related to drug offenses (DeLuca, et

al., forthcoming).

The Moving To Opportunity (MTO) demonstration in five U.S. metropolitan areas

randomly assigned public housing residents who volunteered to participate to one of

three experimental groups: (1) controls that got no rental voucher but could stay in public

housing in disadvantaged neighborhoods; (2) recipients of rental vouchers; and (3)

recipients of rental vouchers and relocation assistance who had to move to

neighborhoods with less than 10 percent poverty rates and remain for at least a year.

Most investigations of MTO data revealed no substantial neighborhood effects on

educational and labor market outcomes after five or ten years (e.g., Ludwig, Duncan and

Pinkston, 2000; Katz, Kling and Liebman, 2001; Ludwig, Ladd and Duncan, 2001;

Ludwig, Duncan, and Hirschfield, 2001; Orr et al., 2003; Goering and Feins, 2003;

Ludwig et al., 2008).7 However, analysts have observed several important neighborhood

effects on mental health of mothers and daughters, rates of risky behaviors by youth,

perceptions of safety, and overall life satisfaction (Goering and Feins, 2003; Kling,

Liebman, and Katz, 2007). Clampet-Lundquist and Massey (2008) re-analyzed MTO

data from the perspective of only those who experienced substantial spells in low-

7 Based on this, it has become fashionable for some to boldly and publicly assert that “MTO has proven that there are no important neighborhood effects.” This is unjustified for many reasons; see Galster (2008), Sampson (2008), and Clampet-Lundquist and Massey (2008).

14

poverty neighborhoods, and found evidence that prolonged residence there was indeed

associated with a variety of improved labor market outcomes for adults.

The Effects of Social Mix on the Disadvantaged: Provisional Conclusions

What does the foregoing evidence suggest about the effects of social mix on

disadvantaged residents and the associated neighborhood effect mechanisms, when all

is said and done? With the mandatory caveat that firm conclusions are elusive here, my

evaluation provisionally suggests the following.8

First, in both the U.S. and Western Europe high concentrations of poverty or

socially disadvantaged households (which typically are heavily Hispanic- and especially

black-occupied neighborhoods in the U.S. and immigrant-occupied neighborhoods in

Western Europe) have been empirically linked to negative externalities like youth

delinquency, criminality, and mental health distress. This is consistent with several

alternative mechanisms of impact in disadvantaged neighborhoods: (1) intra-

neighborhood role model/peer effects; (2) intra-neighborhood circumscribed, resource-

poor social networks that provide few links to labor market opportunities; (3) extra-

neighborhood processes of stigmatization/resource deprivation based on the area’s

inferior class or ethnic status.

Second, most U.S. and Western European evidence indicates that the influence

on vulnerable individuals of advantaged neighbors is smaller in absolute value than the

influence of disadvantaged neighbors. Many studies have consistently found that there

is relatively little social interaction and networking between lower-income and higher-

income households or children in the same neighborhood, and this lack is compounded

if there are also racial differences involved. Thus, there is little to support the version of

neighborhood effects that advantaged neighbors create valuable networks of “weak ties”

for disadvantaged ones. Role modeling seems a more likely mechanism of positive

intra-neighborhood social interactions.9

8 I recognize that practitioners who deal directly with deprived neighborhoods hold divergent and conflicting opinions about which neighborhood effect mechanisms are most important (Atkinson and Kintrea, 2004). 9 Summary claims about specific mechanisms can be made with somewhat less assurance based on the Western European statistical evidence on neighborhood effects, given the comparatively limited scope and mixed findings of this literature. Perhaps the variety of findings is predictable, given that state interventions that may blunt the observed relationship between individual outcomes and neighborhood conditions vary greatly across Western Europe. For example, the finding by Musterd and Andersson (forthcoming) that neighborhood unemployment rate’s effect ceases after 16 percent may be due to a Swedish governmental strategy of targeting

15

Third, in U.S. neighborhood contexts there is virtually no evidence suggesting

that the competition or relative deprivation mechanisms are operating in a meaningful

way. The same cannot be said of Western European evidence, however, where there

are some hints that mixing of extremely low- and high-income groups results in some

harms for those who are disadvantaged.

In sum, my reading of the U.S. and Western European evidence is that social mix

can be beneficial for disadvantaged residents in terms of intra-neighborhood processes,

but this appears most likely when the social gulf between groups in the neighborhood is

not excessive. The main benefits seem to transpire as the extremely negative

consequences of concentrated deprivation (transmitted likely through both intra- and

extra-neighborhood processes) are replaced by the comparatively weak but beneficial

consequences of social mix.

The Effects of Social Mix on the Advantaged: The Evidence Base

Above I argued that planners should be concerned about whether social mixing

has positive, negative, or neutral impacts on advantaged residents, applying the

evaluative criteria of social efficiency. Relevant evidence on this point comes in two

forms. One set of statistical studies directly investigate behavioral outcomes for

advantaged individuals living in socially mixed neighborhoods. The second examines

attitudinal changes related to increased tolerance that may be produced by social

mixing.

Effects on the Behaviors of the Advantaged

Only a few statistical studies have examined neighborhood effects on

advantaged individuals generated by disadvantaged neighbors, but most find negative

impacts. Musterd and Andersson (2005) found for both those with moderate or high

levels of education that residence in predominantly low-income neighborhoods in 1995

was associated with diminished future employment prospects. Musterd and Andersson

(forthcoming) observed that those with 15 or more years of education who were

unemployed were more likely to remain so if they resided in neighborhoods with higher

resources to precisely such neighborhood of concentrated unemployment. On the other hand, there are many inconsistent findings even among European studies using similar measures, methods, and data from the same social-welfare regimes; cf. Musterd and Andersson (2005) and van der Klaauw and van Ours (2003); McCulloch (2001), Buck (2001), and Bolster et al. (2004).

16

percentages of unemployed neighbors, at least up to a point. Oberwittler (2007)

analyzed a sample of adolescent children who were advantaged by their German-

citizenship. Multi-level analyses revealed that the rate of self-reported delinquency and

gang membership for German girls (but not boys) and self-reported rates of serious

property offenses (both genders) were positively related to the percentage of neighbors

who received welfare payments in the neighborhood.

However, two studies that more convincingly controlled for selection effects than

those cited above found no negative impacts on advantaged individuals from

disadvantaged neighbors in Sweden. Based on data for Swedish urban individuals,

Galster et al. (2008) found that incomes of neither advantaged (i.e., full-time employed)

males and females were affected by variations in the share of low-income neighbors.

Operationalizing “disadvantage” as immigrant status in Sweden, Edin, Fredricksson, and

Aslund (2003) found that living in municipalities with more members of the same ethnic

group provided no impact on earnings of high-skill immigrants, regardless of the

surrounding co-ethnic group’s income level.

Thus, the evidence is sparse and contradictory about whether the economic

opportunities or behaviors of advantaged individuals (defined either by employment,

income, or immigrant status) are harmed by the presence of disadvantaged neighbors.

Conclusions of harm must be treated cautiously since they were not based on models

with appropriate controls for selection. Moreover, the vast majority of work in this realm

employs Swedish data, which clearly have limited generality.

Effects on the Attitudes of the Advantaged

Advantaged (as well as disadvantaged) populations may benefit from social mix

if the contact results in a reduction of inter-group prejudices (Allport, 1954). Studies

have observed that inter-ethnic group and inter-economic group tolerance and

subsequent social contacts have been enhanced with greater intra-neighborhood

contacts, especially earlier in life (e.g., Ihlanfeldt and Scafidi, 2002; Emerson, Kimbro

and Yancey, 2002). The conditions for which the most positive sentiments arise are

when the groups work toward common goals and when the contacts situation allows the

participants the opportunity to form friendships (Pettigrew, 1998). However, a recent

meta-analysis of hundreds of empirical studies of the contact hypothesis by Pettigrew

and Tropp (2006) concluded that reductions in inter-group prejudice occur, even when

optimal context for contact is not present. This implies that there may be some case for

17

the social solidarity neighborhood effect mechanism operating in socially mixed

neighborhoods, at least in places where “community building” activities are successful in

directing diverse groups toward collaboration on actions for the common good of the

community.10

The Effects of Social Mix on the Advantaged: Provisional Conclusions

There is little convincing evidence that social mixing with disadvantaged

neighbors creates negative outcomes for advantaged households, unless the former

group exceeds a threshold share in the neighborhood. On the contrary, there is a large

body of evidence that such contact can (though not necessarily) increase the tolerance

and reduce the prejudicial stereotypes of advantaged residents (as well as those of their

disadvantaged neighbors).

The Effects of Social Mix on Society as a Whole: The Evidence Base

There are two types of statistical evidence that help us ascertain whether social

mixing of neighborhoods might provide a net improvement of the well-being of

disadvantaged and advantaged individuals in aggregate. The first examines potential

non-linear statistical associations between variations in the share of disadvantaged

residents in a neighborhood and outcomes for other individuals residing there. The

second examines potential non-linear relationships with housing values and the social

mix of the neighborhood. I consider each in turn.

Non-Linear Relationships between Social Mix and Individual Outcomes

Empirical studies in the U.S. literature that test for non-linear relationships

between neighborhood poverty rates and various individual outcomes (not distinguished

by their degree of disadvantage) include Krivo and Peterson (1996), Vartanian (1999a,

b), Weinberg, Reagan and Yankow (2004). My review (Galster, 2002; but cf. Johnson,

Ladd and Ludwig, 2002) suggests that the evidence from the U.S. may be summarily

portrayed as a logit-like relationship, with two thresholds. The independent impacts of

neighborhood poverty rates in encouraging negative outcomes for individuals like crime,

school leaving, and duration of poverty spells appear to be nil unless the neighborhood

10 The picture seems less clear from Western European evidence, however (e.g., see Farwick, 2007).

18

exceeds about 20 percent poverty, whereupon the externality effects grow rapidly until

the neighborhood reaches approximately 40 percent poverty; subsequent increases in

the poverty population appear to have no marginal external effect. Analogously, the

independent impacts of neighborhood poverty rates in discouraging positive behaviors

like working appear to be nil unless the neighborhood exceeds about 15 percent poverty,

whereupon the effects grow rapidly until the neighborhood reaches roughly 30 percent

poverty; subsequent increases in poverty appear to have no marginal effect. This

evidence is consistent with either the internal neighborhood mechanism of social norms

or the external mechanism of stigmatism/institutional resource restrictions, both of which

implicitly involve thresholds of disadvantaged share in the neighborhood before they

take hold.

By contrast, the Western European evidence related to potential non-linear

neighborhood effects of disadvantaged neighbors focuses on labor market outcomes,

and the findings are mixed in the extreme. Several studies (Ostendorf, Musterd, and de

Vos, 2001; Bolster et al., 2004; McCulloch, 2001; Musterd, Ostendorf and de Vos, 2003)

detected no important non-linearities. Other studies detected non-linear relationships,

but of highly inconsistent natures; cf.: Buck (2001), Musterd and Andersson

(forthcoming), Van der Klaauw and van Ours (2003), Gordon and Monastiriotis (2006),

Oberwittler (2007), and Galster et al. (2008).

A few studies have tested for non-linear relationships between educational or

developmental outcomes for youth and neighborhood percentages of affluent residents;

see: Crane (1991), Duncan et al. (1997), and Chase-Lansdale et al. (1997) in the U.S.

and Kauppinen (2004) in Finland. Unfortunately, though they all suggest the existence

of a threshold of neighborhood affluence they differ on where this occurs, perhaps

because somewhat different outcomes and measures of advantage are being used.11

This evidence also is consistent with both intra-neighborhood processes (e.g., high-

status neighbors exerting collective social norms) and external processes (the affluent

negating stigma of the area or bringing resources that made local institutions and

services better).

11 Turley (2003) analyzes behavioral and psychological test scores for youth as measured in a special supplement of the PSID. She relates these scores to the median family income of the census tract, so one cannot be certain whether the relationship is being generated by share of affluent or share of poor.

19

Non-Linear Relationships between Social Mix and Housing Values

As noted above there is a substantial body of U.S. econometric literature

suggesting that a variety of negative behavioral outcomes occur for residents when the

neighborhood poverty rate exceeds a range of 15%-20%. Two additional, recent pieces

of remarkably consistent evidence support the same conclusion, but when aggregate

neighborhood housing values are the outcome of interest. These studies utilize the well-

known proposition that a variety of localized amenities and disamenities are capitalized

into values of homes in the area. The authors reason that the direct and indirect effects

of having more disadvantaged residents in a neighborhood (larger incidence of social

problems, reductions in maintenance of housing, loss of neighborhood prestige, etc.) will

be reflected in declines in housing values, all else equal. Using data from similarly

scaled neighborhoods (wards in England and census tracts in the U.S., respectively),

Meen (2005) and Galster, Cutsinger and Malega (2008) statistically estimate a strong

negative relationship between neighborhood property value changes and increases in

neighborhood disadvantage (poverty rates), but only after such exceeds roughly the

same 15-20% threshold as noted above. The overall relationship resembled a negative

logistic function.

The Effects of Social Mix on Society as a Whole: Provisional Conclusions

The fact that neighborhood poverty rates in the U.S. appear consistently related

to a range of individual behavioral outcomes in a non-linear, threshold-like fashion is

consistent with only a few sorts of neighborhood effect mechanisms. Unfortunately, with

highly inconsistent evidence regarding non-linearities of neighborhood impacts on

individual behaviors in the Western European evidence, less clear inferences can be

drawn. However, both U.S. and U.K. evidence from studies of non-linear effects of

shares of disadvantaged populations on housing values is consistent with the

aforementioned U.S. evidence on behaviors. Collectively, this evidence provides, in my

view, strong support for the hypotheses of the neighborhood effect mechanisms of: (1)

external stigmatization/institutional resource constraints, and (2) intra-neighborhood

effects manifesting themselves past a threshold, such as collective social norms.

Even more importantly, it clearly suggests that a regime of complete segregation

(neighborhoods of either concentrated advantage or concentrated disadvantage) is

socially less efficient than one in which every neighborhood has an equal share of the

disadvantaged. This improved social well-being can be measured either as lower overall

20

incidences of socially problematic behaviors or higher aggregate housing values.

However, the evidence also suggests that not every degree of social mix is more

efficient than complete segregation; only mixes with extremely low concentrations of the

disadvantaged appear to be more socially efficient.

The Composition of the Social Mix: The Evidence Base

Mixing by Economics or by Immigrant Status

Thus far, I have reviewed the evidence related to “disadvantaged” as defined by

income, but what about immigrant status as the basis for disadvantage? The latter

seems to be a category of higher salience in many Western European contexts. The

evidence here is reasonably consistent about whether more intra-neighborhood

immigrant contact in homogeneous communities (enclaves) provides net (or long-term)

positive externalities for ethnic minorities or immigrants. In most cases, prolonged

residential contact with other immigrants (whether own- or other-group) is associated

with negative outcomes. However, a neighborhood with exceptionally highly skilled and

employed immigrants can provide positive externalities to other resident immigrants that

have clear economic payoffs. This suggests that the economic mix of the neighborhood

trumps the immigrant mix in importance.

European-based statistical work by Clark and Drinkwater (2002), and Aslund and

Fredricksson (2005) and U.S.-based work by Galster, Metzger, and Waite (1999) and

Cutler, Glaeser and Vigdor (2008) have found that residence in ethnic enclaves reduces

economic opportunities for low-income immigrants. However, other studies from both

regions (Borjas, 1995, 1998; Edin, Fredricksson, and Aslund,2003; Cutler, Glaeser and

Vigdor, 2008) have found that residence with economically advantaged co-immigrants

can provide a variety of advantages for new arrivals.

A potential resolution of these apparently contradictory findings was produced by

Musterd et al. (2007), who examines how the duration of percentages and densities of

own-group and other immigrants in the neighborhood affect ed individual Swedish

immigrants’ future earnings during 1999-2001, controlling for a wide range of personal

21

characteristics. They found that the impact of immigrant neighbors (both own- and

other-group) depends on the duration of residence and economic context of the

neighborhood. Co-ethnic clustering provided only a net positive effect if one stayed in

an own-group-dominant neighborhood for a few years; thereafter the effect became

strongly negative. Residence among other immigrants provided further detriments to

earnings unless residents of the area had very low unemployment rates, whereupon

their impact appeared to be positive.

Thus, it appears that among immigrants the mix of advantaged and

disadvantaged groups defined in income/employment terms is much more powerful than

the mix defined purely in terms of immigrant ethnicity or national origin. This conclusion

is strongly buttressed by Andersson et al. (2007), who found that the neighborhood

share of the adult population in the lowest 30th percentile of income was related to adult

male and female Swedes’ incomes over a subsequent five-year period in a stronger

fashion than a variety of other potential measures related to neighborhood social mix,

including immigrant status, education, social benefit receipt, or housing tenure type.12

Social Mix or Neighborhood Social Process Characteristics

Thus far we have been examining evidence related to how a variety of outcomes

are related to the social mix of a neighborhood, operationalized by the socioeconomic

characteristics of the residents. But is it the socioeconomic composition of

neighborhood per se that matters, or the lack of social order and cohesion that might be

associated with it?

The latter position was first given empirical support by Aneshensel and Sucoff

(1996), who found that neighborhood social cohesion explained a large portion of the

relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and adolescent depression.

Turley (2003) modeled the determinants of youths’ behavioral and psychological test

scores and found strong interaction effects for white (but not black) youths between

median family income of neighborhood and proxies for number of peer interactions and

time spent in neighborhood. She concluded that “differences in neighborhood

socializing may explain why median neighborhood income affects black and white

children differently” (2003: 70). Finally, Kohen et al. (2002) found that neighborhood

disorder was negatively related and neighborhood cohesion was positively related to

12 The most powerful effect seemed to occur in neighborhoods characterized both by low income and high proportions of refugees.

22

children’s verbal ability; the addition of these variables rendered previous associations

with neighborhood affluence and poverty insignificant statistically. They found that

neighborhood cohesion (though not disorder) also was negatively associated with

children’s behavioral problems, though neighborhood social characteristics retained

some explanatory power as well.

Thus, at least for some outcomes, it appears that it is not social mix alone or

directly that may influence outcomes but, rather, the internal social dynamics of the

place that often is only partly measured by its socio-economic status mix. This theme

has been emphasized in a number of studies by Sampson and his colleagues

(Sampson, 1992; Sampson and Groves, 1989; Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls, 1997;

Morenoff, Sampson and Raudenbush 2001. To understand the effects of disadvantaged

neighborhoods, they argue, one must understand their degree of social organization,

which entails the context of community norms, values and structures enveloping

residents’ behaviors (what he has labeled “collective efficacy”). Sampson’s work has

empirically demonstrated that disorder and lack of social cohesion are associated with

greater incidence of mental distress and criminality in neighborhoods (see the review in

Sampson, Morenoff and Gannon-Rowley, 2002). In this regard there is a good deal of

trans-Atlantic commonality of findings related to collective efficacy and negative crime

outcomes; cf. Hirshfield and Bowers (1997), Veysey and Messner (1999), and Blasius

and Friedrichs (2004). However, in neither North American or Western European

contexts has it been demonstrated that social control and disorder have affects on other

outcomes of interest such as youth behavioral and psychological development, school

leaving, teen pregnancy, and employment and earnings.

The Concentration of Social Mix: The Evidence Base

The U.S. literature is replete with studies that have investigated the impacts on

housing values associated with assisted (social) housing being developed nearby. This

evidence provides indirect evidence on potential concentration effects of the

disadvantaged. When viewed in its totality, the subset of this home price impact

literature that employs the appropriate statistical methodology provides a distinct theme

(for reviews, see Freeman and Botein, 2002; Galster et al, 2003; Galster, 2004). The

impacts of assisted housing on prices of nearby single-family homes will depend in an

interactive way on concentration and neighborhood context.

23

As for concentration, it appears that higher amounts of new construction or

rehabilitation of assisted housing in a given area will provide larger positive price impacts

for nearby homes over some range (Galster et al., 1999; Santiago, Galster and Tatian,

2001; Ellen et al., 2001; Schill et al., 2002; Schwartz et al., 2002). However, there

apparently is a diminishing marginal positive impact (Schwartz et al., 2002) that, at least

in the case of affordable, multi-family rental complexes, can become a negative impact

once concentrations exceed a threshold amount (Johnson and Bednarz, 2002). This

potentially negative “over-concentration” effect seems particularly apparent in the case

of tenant-based subsidy programs like rental vouchers (Galster et al, 1999; Galster,

Tatian and Smith, 1999).

Neighborhood context also affects the magnitude and direction of concentration

effects. Assisted housing seems least likely to generate negative impacts when inserted

into high-value, low-poverty, stable neighborhoods. There appears to be growing

evidence, however, that neighborhoods with modest values, trajectories of decline, and

non-trivial poverty rates will have a greater risk of experiencing negative housing price

impacts at lower concentrations of assisted housing, regardless of its specific form (cf.

Galster et al, 1999; Galster, Tatian and Smith, 1999; Galster and Tatian, 2001; Johnson

and Bednarz, 2002).

Thus, these studies comport well with aforementioned work on nonlinear

relationships between neighborhood shares of economically disadvantaged populations

and various behavioral and property value outcomes. The evidence is clear that

relatively low concentrations of the disadvantaged group (below roughly 15-20% in the

case of U.S. poverty rates) do not create measurable negative externalities for

neighbors.

The Scale of Social Mixing: The Evidence Base

In an earlier survey of the neighborhood literature, I noted the multiplicity of

conceptualizations of neighborhood (Galster, 2001). Many scholars have employed a

purely geographic perspective, while others have attempted to integrate social and

geographic perspectives. The upshot is that, whatever “neighborhood” is, it undoubtedly

has distinct social, economic, and psychological meanings and exerts various effects at

multiple geographic scales. The first to recognize this was Suttles (1972), who argued

that households engaged indistinct social relationships within four scales of

24

neighborhood, which he labeled: (1) “block face;” (2) “community of limited liability;” (3)

“expanded community of limited liability:” and (4) “sector of a city.” Suttles’ and

subsequent empirical work has confirmed the ability of households to recognize multiple

scales of neighborhood; see, e.g., Birch et al. (1979). I have since formulated theories

of nested scales of neighborhood based on the nature of the spatial variations in

externalities of amenities impinging on a household (Galster, 1986) and of the

geographic nature of the various attributes of the bundle comprising neighborhood

(Galster, 2001). However, often there is a great deal of interpersonal variance in the

perceived boundaries of neighborhoods, both within and across scales. Moreover, it is

likely that different mechanisms whereby neighborhood effects may transpire extend

over different spatial extents from the individuals in question.

The statistical literature on neighborhood effects is replete with alternative

specifications of neighborhood geography because data employed were collected at

various scales by different institutions. The U.S.–based studies typically employ the

census tract, an area bounded by local planners who employ transportation routes

and/or topographical features to create as demographically homogeneous areas as

possible containing roughly 4,000 inhabitants, on average. Western European-based

studies evince a greater variety of scales. For example, U.K.–based work has used

administrative data from wards (similar to tracts), lower super output areas (roughly

1,400 inhabitants), and school catchment areas (various sizes); e.g., see Buck (2001,

2007) and Bramley and Karley (2007). Postal code areas have often been employed,

though these vary from 9,000-17,000 inhabitants in Germany (e.g., Drever, 2004; 2007)

to 1,700 in the Netherlands (e.g., Van der Laan Bouma-Doff (2007a). Still other work

has employed “city districts” of various sizes (cf. Blasius and Friedrichs,

2007,Oberwittler, 2007). Farwick (2007) has considered the “apartment complex” as

neighborhood. The challenge in examining this work is in deducing the influence of

different neighborhood scales, when so much is different across these studies.

The most direct way of answering the question “what scale(s) of neighborhood

matter most in influencing individual outcomes” is to conduct parallel analyses of a

particular outcome where neighborhood indicators are measured at different scales and

estimates of effects are compared. Several Western European studies have taken this

tack: Buck (2001), Bolster et al. (2004), Knies (2007), Van Ham and Manley (2009). All

found statistically significant relationships at various scales, but stronger correlations

25

were observed between individual outcomes and neighborhood variables when the latter

were measured at smaller spatial scales.

These findings nicely comport with several European (Atkinson and Kintrea,

1998;) and American (Kleit, 2001a, 2001b, 2002, 2005), Clampet-Lundquist, 2004)

studies showing the degree of social interactions among different groups residing in a

common neighborhood was enhanced if the groups were mixed more at the micro-scale.

The evidence therefore strongly suggests that the most net-beneficial effects on

disadvantaged (and, perhaps, advantaged) residents will occur if social mix is achieved

at a very finely grained scale. Thus, pleas in Great Britain for more of a “pepper-potting”

strategy (Page and Boughton, 1997; Jupp, 1999; Beekman et al. 2001) appear to have

empirical merit.

Conclusions Regarding the Planning Goal of a Neighborhood Social Mix Strategy

When all is said and done, what does the foregoing Western European and U.S.

evidence suggest about whether the goal of neighborhood social mix can be justified

and, if so, on what grounds? There is convincing evidence from both regions that

disadvantaged individuals in are significantly harmed by the presence of sizable

disadvantaged groups in their neighborhood, likely due to negative peer/role modeling,

weak social norms/control, limited-resource networks, and stigmatization mechanisms.

There also is convincing, broad-based evidence that disadvantaged individuals may be

helped by the presence of more advantaged groups in their neighborhood, likely due to

positive role modeling, stronger social norms/control and elimination of geographic

stigma. However, mixing with those of much higher income appears to produce inferior

outcomes for the disadvantaged relative to mixing with middle-income groups, likely

through relative deprivation and competition effects. In concert, the foregoing suggests

that there is a sufficient evidentiary base to justify on equity grounds (i.e., improving the

absolute well-being of the disadvantaged) a social mix policy that works toward avoiding

high concentrations of disadvantaged individuals and promoting residential diversity of

groups, preferably of only modestly dissimilar socioeconomic status.

By contrast, there is evidence that advantaged individuals in the U.S. and

Western Europe may be harmed by the presence of disadvantaged groups (both via

social interactions and property market reactions) under certain circumstances of high

concentrations and weaker neighborhood housing markets. However, there is evidence

26

that prejudices of advantaged (and disadvantaged) groups may be eroded by closer

residential contacts. Moreover, there is evidence (in both regions but more convincingly

so in the U.S.) of increasing marginal negative consequences of disadvantaged

neighbors past a threshold neighborhood share. In concert, these points suggest that

there is probably a sufficient evidentiary base to justify on efficiency grounds a goal of

neighborhood social mix, but only if the concentration of disadvantage stays relatively

low in all neighborhoods.

Implications for Planning the Means to Achieving Social Mix

Thus far I have concentrated on analyzing whether neighborhood social mix was

a goal worthy of pursuing on equity and efficiency grounds. Given that the answer is a

qualified “yes,” here I turn to a general analysis of means to achieving this goal. I do not

provide prescriptions, but rather a set of issues that planners must confront in the

context of the particular situation they confront. Worthy goals do not justify all

conceivable means of achieving them, so the planner must assess the equity and

efficiency dimensions of particular program(s) being considered for enhancing social

mix. I will argue below that these considerations must be highly contingent, thus I can

provide no general rules.

However, the foregoing review does provide several desirable parameters of

social mix that help guide practical planning practice:

• Composition: mixing on the basis of economic status seems more important than

on the bases of immigrant or housing tenure status; there should not be to great

a gap between the economic groups being mixed; little empirical guidance on

overall composition (Tunstall and Fenton, 2006) or on which characteristic(s)

producing heterogeneity within the disadvantaged are worthy of attention

• Concentration: the U.S. research indicates that the mix should not exceed

roughly 15-20% poverty populations; evidence less clear for Europe

• Scale: mixing should be accomplished at the smallest feasible spatial scale

Other issues related to the means of achieving social mix are specific to the

programmatic vehicle chosen. For example, social mix could be encouraged in the U.S.

by encouraging and assisting recipients of housing choice (formerly section 8) rental

27

vouchers to locate in areas with relatively few assisted households or other low-income

families, and by encouraging or requiring landlords to participate in the program. For

discussions of these issues, see Galster et al. (2003) and Goering and Feins (2003).

Another strategic possibility is inclusionary zoning, whereby a minimum percentage of

dwelling units in developments exceeding a certain threshold are set aside and offered

at below-market-rate rents or prices. The U.K. and some places in the U.S. have

experimented with this strategy. Yet another is to provide economic incentives to private

developers (like density bonuses, tax credits, or low-interest mortgages) to provide more

affordable units as part of the mix of dwellings in a new development; see Brophy and

Smith (1997). Yet another approach is to develop (or preserve) social housing in areas

that are gentrifying; see Levy et al. (2006). .

The above strategies have a common element: they expand opportunities for

lower-income families to live in communities with households of somewhat higher

economic means and are voluntary in nature. There is another social mix strategy,

however, that deserves more attention here because it typically reduces options for low-

income families and is involuntary. I am referring to the redevelopment of public housing

estates and their transformation into mixed-income developments, as has been widely

practiced in Europe, U.S., and Australia.

Whenever contemplating demolishing or radically altering the resident

composition of a public housing estate, a planner must take a myriad of contingencies

into account. Beyond the aforementioned composition, concentration and scale

parameters, however, at least five other facets need to be analyzed for the strategy to

reach its fullest potential: maintenance, design, community building, location, and

function (cf. Brophy and Smith, 1997; Joseph, 2006; Tunstall and Fenton, 2006; Van

Kempen et al. 2009). Maintenance of socially mixed estates (especially the units

occupied by the disadvantaged) is a crucial element to the success of the development.

Not only does a well-managed and maintained area raise all residents’ satisfaction

levels, it reduces potential for inter-group tensions and intolerance (Jupp, 1999; Martin

and Watkinson, 2003), and minimizes chances that the larger housing market will

perceive social mix as associated with negative externalities that can lower proximate

property values (Galster et al., 2003)

Design of the dwellings and the larger residential complexes that encompass

them is also important in achieving group-interaction goals of social mixing (Joseph,

2006). Clearly, dwellings, common areas, parks and pathways designed to encourage

28

inter-household interactions and defensible spaces will maximize the opportunities for

different groups to interact and collectively create secure, satisfying residential

environments. Architecture that minimizes the visible distinctions among dwelling for the

different groups will also reduce chances for stigmatization.

But physical attributes of socially mixed places likely will be insufficient to

generate the type of non-superficial interactions that ultimately may lead to more

significant network and friendship formation that may prove instrumental for the

disadvantaged. “Community-building” efforts aimed at developing more informal events

and formal institutions in the neighborhood likely will be required to help different groups

facilitate interpersonal connections and find common interests (Joseph, 2006).

The location of the development being considered for restructuring must be

assessed. Some sites have poor access to jobs, shopping, recreation and other

amenities. Merely altering the physical quality of dwellings and the social mix on the site

may do little to enhance the opportunities or satisfaction of low-income residents.

Finally, the type of the development being considered for restructuring must be

assessed. It is rarely the case that “areas of concentrated disadvantage” are all uniform

in their function. Some indeed may operate as “poverty traps,” as is often feared. But

others may operate as springboards launching residents into improving life trajectories.

Such has often been seen as the function of “immigrant enclaves,” for example. Though

disadvantaged by most conventional indicators, they nevertheless may provide crucial

human, financial, and social capital in a linguistically and culturally sensitive way that

simply could not be replicated were the area to be “deconcentrated.”

Before closing, I would be remiss to not mention several daunting ethical

challenges of achieving the sort of productive socially mixed places meeting all the

criteria above (cf. Tunstall and Fenton, 2006; Brophy and Smith, 1997). Not only are

substantial financial and human resources involved, but some of the aforementioned

parameters may be mutually contradictory. A “pepper-potting” approach of keeping low

concentrations of the disadvantaged might be desirable from the standpoint of

increasing exposure of the disadvantaged to positive role models and social controls,

eliminating place stigmatization, and gaining political acceptability from the advantaged.

However, such an approach may badly disrupt the support networks and local

institutions of the disadvantaged and subject them to excessive scrutiny and

stigmatization (Briggs, 1997, Joseph, 2006), and heighten potential intergroup conflicts

over differences in lifestyles (Goodchild and Cole, 2001; Beekman et al, 2001). Mixing

29

the disadvantaged with those who are not too dissimilar in socioeconomic status may

prove more beneficial to the former group. But it may be difficult to accomplish this if

deconcentration strategies are taken to scale and policy makers wish to avoid

destabilizing middle and working class neighborhoods with additional assisted housing.

Whether all these challenges can be surmounted our not, social mix

planning should be approached with a substantial dose of circumspection, sensitivity to

contextual nuance, and modest expectations. Despite the volume of research related to

social mix, I believe that many of the fundamental questions I have posed have not been

answered with sufficient clarity and unanimity to warrant uncritical formulations of policy

and plans. Moreover, planners should not be lulled into thinking that social mix—even at

its most successful-- is a panacea for disadvantage (Joseph, 2006; Joseph, Chaskin ad

Webber, 2007). Neighborhood environment alone may be insufficient to change

drastically the economic prospects of adults who lack basic human capital, social skills,

or means of transportation that would unlock doors of opportunity. Similarly, youth may

gain little payoffs from a mixed neighborhood if their networks predominantly connect

them to their previous environments of concentrated disadvantage or they continue to

enroll in inferior, underachieving school systems. It will take a more comprehensive set

of social welfare interventions and supports to provide fair opportunities for all citizens,

even in a world of socially mixed neighborhoods.

30

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