Migration Patterns and the Growth of High‐Poverty Neighborhoods, 1970‐‐1990

Using geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article examines why the number of high‐poverty neighborhoods in American cities has increased since 1970. The main findings are (1) the migration of the nonpoor away from moderately poor neighborhoods has been a key process in forming new high‐poverty neighborhoods, although in the early 1980s increasing poverty rates were also important; and (2) African‐Americans have moved into predominately white neighborhoods at a pace sufficient to increase their numbers there, but neighborhoods with increasing black populations tend to lose white population rapidly. Implications for theories of poor neighborhoods are discussed.