First Advisor

Lee J. Haggerty

Date of Publication

1975

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.) in Sociology

Department

Sociology

Language

English

Subjects

Metropolitan areas -- United States, Residential mobility -- United States, Housing -- United States, Upper class -- United States, Population

DOI

10.15760/etd.2408

Physical Description

1 online resource (84 p.)

Abstract

In this thesis we examine the effect which the obsolescence of central city housing exerts on the decentralization within urban areas of high status residents. In particular, we investigate whether housing obsolescence is a useful addition to a model which explains the decentralization of high status residents in terms of the intensity of competition for central city land.

All of our data are official Census figures for 1970. The subjects of our study are Standard Metropolitan Statistical Are.as (SMSA.'s) whose central city had a population of 100,000 or more. From this group we delete the New York and Chicago Consolidated Areas because of their great size and the number of municipalities included within their borders. For each SMSA we compute the percentage of its families and unrelated individuals who had an income of greater than $25,000 and who lived in the central city. We then statistically control for variation across SMSA.'s in the decentralization of population and employment. The decentralization of population is measured by the percentage of the SMSA population which resided within the central city. The decentralization of employment is measured by the percentage of SMSA jobs which were located within the central city.

Once we have controlled the decentralization of the well-to-do for the decentralization of population and the decentralization of employment, we regress it on population density, housing obsolescence, and city age. Population density is persons per square mile in the central city. Housing obsolescence is the percentage of the central city housing structures which were twenty years old or older. City age is the number of decades since the central city attained a population of 50,000.

In our study we demonstrate that population density exerts a considerably stronger effect on the decentralization of the well-to-do than is exerted by housing obsolescence. We also demonstrate that most of city age's effect on the decentralization of the well-to-do can be explained by city age's effect on population density and housing obsolescence.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/15752

Download

Share

COinS