• About
    • What Should I Read to Understand Zoning?
  • Market Urbanism Podcast
  • Adam Hengels
  • Stephen Smith
  • Emily Hamilton
  • Jeff Fong
  • Nolan Gray
  • Contact

Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Podcast
  • Economics
  • housing
  • planning
  • Transportation
  • zoning
  • Urban[ism] Legends
  • How to Fight Gentrification
  • Culture of Congestion by Sandy Ikeda
  • What Should I Read to Understand Zoning?

Confounding Diversity with Segregation Again

October 6, 2021 By Salim Furth

In July, I showed that an otherwise careful group of researchers at the Othering and Belonging Institute were using a measure of statistical racial segregation that confounds diversity with segregation. Briefly, regions with more variety in the racial makeup of their neighborhoods will show up as statistically “segregated.” Regions where all neighborhoods are pretty similar will show up as statistically “integrated.” To their credit, the study authors corresponded with me at length and adjusted their Technical Appendix to emphasize limitations that I had pointed out.

Today, Mark Zandi, Dante DeAntonio, Kwame Donaldson, and Matt Colyar of Moody’s Analytics released a much less careful study purporting to show the “macroeconomic benefits of racial integration.” But if one were to make the mistake of taking their study at all seriously it would lead one to the opposite conclusion: mostly-white counties do better economically. They discovered white privilege and mislabeled it “integration.”

(When economists talk about “segregation” statistically, they mean differences in racial proportions across neighborhoods. This is not the same as the de jure segregation regime imposed in the American South. It’s not even the de facto segregation that persists in some neighborhoods today.)

The easiest way to see Zandi et al’s mistake is to work backwards from the table of county results they (helpfully) published. The most integrated county in America, in their analysis, is Kennebec County, Maine. It’s 94.6% white. The rest of the most-integrated counties are similarly pallid – with the exception of Webb County, Texas, which is 95% Hispanic.

It’s leaf season in integrated Kennebec County, Maine
Photo: Kennebec Valley Tourism Council

In each of these counties, integration is a mathematical product of the lack of diversity. With hardly any minorities, hardly any neighborhood can diverge from the dominant group.

These extreme counties aren’t an accident. Whereas most researchers treat metropolitan areas together, Zandi’s team worked with counties. Several of their integration champions, like Livingston County MI, Jefferson County MO, Medina County OH, and Carroll County MD are very white exurbs at the fringe of some of America’s most segregated (in the real-world sense) cities.

The most segregated counties in their rankings are (of course) all of the most diverse and largest in the U.S. Some of those counties certainly are segregated, but what makes them show up on Zandi et al’s index is that they are diverse.

Now, the ghost of George Wallace might say, “Wow, this is a great study! Look at all these nice things that are attributable to racial homogeneity.” But that would be wrong statistically as well as morally. Simply put, Zandi’s team ran a few regressions without making any attempt to establish causal relationships and without controlling for spatial autocorrelation. There’s nothing to see here, move along.

A spurious correlation from Zandi et al.

The study’s four authors are surely well-meaning, smart men. But this embarrassment shows the need for all of us to give our work a reality check before clicking publish – especially when it relates to a topic with as much moral and emotional weight of segregation.

Tweet

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: diversity, racial segregation, statistics

Market Urbanism Podcast

Connect With Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Book Review: The Making of Urban Japan
  • Review: Homelessness is a Housing Problem
  • Land Value Taxation and Intertemporal Tradeoffs
  • Entrepreneurs and the Changing Political Economy of Housing
  • Protecting Housing Affordability by Protecting the Right to Build Housing
  • Reasons to be a Census skeptic
  • Are there places in America with diversity *and* equality?
  • Do HOAs justify zoning?
  • California should indeed build new cities – but don’t let Nathan J. Robinson anywhere near them
  • Houston Impressions
  • Where investors invest
  • Why Should a Remote Worker Live in a City?
My Tweets

Market Sites Urbanists should check out

  • Cafe Hayek
  • Culture of Congestion
  • Environmental and Urban Economics
  • Foundation for Economic Education
  • Let A Thousand Nations Bloom
  • Marginal Revolution
  • Mike Munger | Kids Prefer Cheese
  • Neighborhood Effects
  • New Urbs
  • NYU Stern Urbanization Project
  • Parafin
  • Peter Gordon's Blog
  • Propmodo
  • The Beacon
  • ThinkMarkets

Urbanism Sites capitalists should check out

  • Austin Contrarian
  • City Comforts
  • City Notes | Daniel Kay Hertz
  • Discovering Urbanism
  • Emergent Urbanism
  • Granola Shotgun
  • Old Urbanist
  • Pedestrian Observations
  • Planetizen Radar
  • Reinventing Parking
  • streetsblog
  • Strong Towns
  • Systemic Failure
  • The Micro Maker
  • The Urbanophile

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2022 Market Urbanism

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.