How Much Does Income Matter in Neighborhood Choice

William A.V. Clark, University of California, Los Angeles
Valerie Ledwith, University of California, Los Angeles

There is a substantial literature on the residential mobility process itself but less on the factors that dictate the neighborhood choices that households make. Much of the neighborhood choice research has been on the impact of poverty neighborhoods rather than on the choice process. In this paper we examine the role of income in white and minority neighborhood choice. We use the detailed data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study (LAFANS) to investigate the residential mobility and residential choices of white and Hispanic households in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. We show that both white and Hispanic households respond to higher incomes by choosing more white neighborhoods in the case of whites and less Hispanic neighborhoods in the case of Hispanics.