Geographic Isolation, Compelled Mobility, and Everyday Exposure to Neighborhood Racial Composition among Urban Youth

Foundational urban social theories view heterogeneity of exposure to spatial contexts as essential aspects of the urban experience. In contrast, contemporary neighborhood research emphasizes the isolation of city dwellers—particularly racially segregated youth. Using geospatial data on a sample of youth from the 2014–16 Adolescent Health and Development in Context study, this article explores variation in the residential racial composition of everyday activity locations. The geographic isolation approach expects home neighborhood racial composition to closely align with the racial composition of activity location neighborhoods. Consistent with the alternative compelled mobility approach, the authors find that segregated Black youth exhibit among the highest levels of heterogeneity in the racial composition of neighborhoods encountered. These youth spend a substantial amount of their outside-home time in low-proportion Black neighborhoods, mostly driven by organizationally based resource seeking. These findings challenge the assumption that residence in Black-segregated neighborhoods leads to largely Black-segregated neighborhood exposures.