Does urban sprawl hold down upward mobility

By R. Ewing, Shima Hamidi, J. Grace, Yehua Dennis Wei. 2016

170 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Contrary to the general perception, the United States has a much more class-bound society than other wealthy countries. The chance of upward mobility for Americans is just half that of the citizens of the Denmark and many other European countries. In addition to other influences, the built environment may contribute to the low rate of upward mobility in the U.S. This study tests the relationship between urban sprawl and upward mobility for commuting zones in the U.S. We examine potential pathways through which sprawl may have an effect on mobility. We use structural equation modeling to account for both direct and indirect effects of sprawl on upward mobility. We find that upward mobility is significantly higher in compact areas than sprawling areas. The direct effect, which we attribute to better job accessibility in more compact commuting zones, is stronger than the indirect effects. Of the indirect effects, only one, through the mediating variable income segregation, is significant.

Subfields: Health, Sociology and Political Science, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eff9e9552d3c04ed111210a3a4afdcb94f8a6097

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Health

1. Shima Hamidi

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Ahoura Zandiatashbar
2. Shima Hamidi
3. Wenze Yue
4. R. Ewing
5. Peilei Fan

In Transportation

1. Shima Hamidi
2. Wenze Yue
3. Yong Liu
4. Yan Song
5. Ahoura Zandiatashbar
6. Guang Tian
7. S. Tonin
8. R. Ewing

Citations in the corpus

• Does urban form matter for innovation productivity? A national multi-level study of the association between neighbourhood innovation capacity and urban sprawl (2019, background): “…is related to a range of quality-of-life outcomes such as housing affordability; traffic congestion; traffic safety; open space preservation; physical activity and obesity; social capital; air quality; housing and transportation affordability and upward mobility (Ewing et al., 2016).”
• Testing Newman and Kenworthy’s Theory of Density and Automobile Dependence (2017, background): “…McDonald 2008), private-vehicle commute distances and times (Ewing, Pendall, and Chen 2003; Hamidi et al. 2015; Hamidi and Ewing 2014; Holcombe and Williams 2012; Zolnik 2011), housing plus transportation costs (Hamidi and Ewing 2015), and economic and social upward mobility (Ewing et al. 2016).”
• Impacts of land finance on urban sprawl in China: The case of Chongqing (2018, background): “Urban sprawl, a prevalent phenomenon in cities of Western countries, have long attracted considerable attention from scholars and policymakers (Ewing et al., 2016; Gillham, 2002).”