Race and Regionalism: The Structure of Local Government and Racial Disparity

Abstract

How opportunity is distributed among its component racial groups in a metropolitan region is an important question and is likely to become more so as regions become denser economically and socially. The extent to which governmental structure contributes to racial sorting has been debated since the development of public choice theory. To evaluate how various structural, political, and historical factors affect the relative distribution of opportunity between racial groups in urban regions of the United States, the authors apply a cross-sectional approach, comparing regional characteristics at the time of the 2000 census. Their analysis of the correlates and determinants of racial disparities suggests that these factors collectively explain significant amounts of regional variation with respect to residential racial segregation, cost and quality of housing, and income. The number of local governments and fiscal power diffusion explain some racial disparity. Larger size of black population in a region is associated with less segregation, but more economic disparity while the opposite tends to be true for Hispanics.More liberal state policies and political culture occur where metropolitan black-white segregation is higher. Higher central city incomes appear to decrease segregation while higher suburban income increases it.