Urban Sprawl and Intergenerational Mobility: City- and Neighborhood-Level Effects of Sprawl

Abstract

Characteristics of sprawl, like decreased social cohesion and lower accessibility to jobs and services, could negatively affect economic opportunity and intergenerational mobility. City-level studies have found mixed results, but neighborhood effects have been largely ignored. This study uses census tract and city-level data in a multilevel model to develop a richer understanding of the scale-dependent relationship between sprawl and intergenerational mobility. The authors found that a 1 standard deviation (SD) increase in sprawl at the tract level is associated with a 0.07 SD decrease in upward economic mobility, while a 1 SD increase in city-level sprawl is associated with a 0.08 SD decrease. Sprawl negatively affects upward intergenerational mobility at the metropolitan level and the census tract level. The negative relationship of economic outcomes to sprawl does not hold for high-income children, indicating that there may be conflicting benefits for different income families. Policy makers should understand these conflicting pressures.