Expanding Homes and Increasing Inequalities: U.S. Housing Development and the Residential Segregation of the Affluent

Abstract

Theories of metropolitan development in the United States explain that higher status populations tend to occupy newer housing while lower status groups tend to be restricted to older housing. The housing system thus reflects the broader stratification structure and likely changes in response to important shifts like the steep rise of income inequality at the end of the twentieth century. Indeed, a striking trend of increasingly large houses with many amenities emerged in U.S. metropolitan areas during this period, indicating that new construction may have become ever more exclusive and targeted to the affluent as inequality rose. In this article, I investigate whether the stratifying impact of new house construction intensified along with growing inequality and changing house structures using a variety of U.S. Census Bureau sources, examining both trends in the income level of new house buyers and the relationship of housing growth to affluent residential segregation. I find striking evidence that new housing did become much more dominated by the affluent, and was increasingly stratifying and segregating at the end of the twentieth century. These changes may exacerbate inequality in the future through opportunity structures linked to place of residence, including access to education and the accumulation of housing equity.