Racial-Ethnic Variation in the Residential Environments of Rich Americans
Open Access
- Author:
- Boynton, Charles
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Master of Arts
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- October 18, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Barrett Alan Lee, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
John David Iceland, Committee Member
Stephen Augustus Matthews, Committee Member
Jennifer Lynne Van Hook, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- race
ethnicity
income
housing
neighborhoods
satisfaction
social capital
race
ethnicity
income
housing
neighborhoods
stratification
social capital - Abstract:
- I fill a gap in the stratification literature by documenting the residential environments of rich Americans across six characteristics of their housing units and five of their residential neighborhoods. Extant literature has primarily focused on the residential circumstances of the poor and most analyses have been limited to homeownership and neighborhood poverty measures. Using the 2013 American Housing Survey (AHS), I compare households in the top 5% of the overall income distribution to four other income categories, as well as the top 5% of each major racial-ethnic group (whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians) to their less affluent coethnics. I measured the influence of income and race on six characteristics of the housing unit—tenure, market value, single building occupancy, square footage, year built and housing satisfaction—and five of the residential neighborhood environment—the presence of amenities, disamenities, signs of physical disorder, social capital and neighborhood satisfaction. Adopting the residential attainment framework, I apply the spatial assimilation model and racial stratification theory to explain disparities in residential outcomes by the householder’s race and income. I find few differences by race among the top 5% of the overall income spectrum. This provides support for the spatial assimilation perspective, which predicts relatively small differences across groups after accounting for income. However, I also find support for racial stratification theory; the wealthiest nonwhites do not translate their advantage in income more desirable neighborhood outcomes compared to their less affluent coethnics as consistently as whites do.