Mover Destination Selectivity and the Changing Suburbanization of Metropolitan Whites and Blacks

Abstract

Recent writings of scholars concerned with urban population shifts suggest that post-1970 patterns of population suburbanization have begun to operate in different and less predictable ways than in the past (Alonso, 1980; Pettigrew, 1980). One radical view suggests that declining central cities are becoming more attractive to a large and select segment of the metropolitan area's white population and that the black population has begun to embark on a redistribution process that is reminiscent of the earlier suburbanization of metropolitan whites. It is my intent here to shed light on such speculations by examining trends in the intrametropolitan destination selectivity of movers over three postwar periods and by estimating their effects on the evolving suburbanization process. Trends in mover destination selectivity, as indicated by changes in movers' destination propensity rates, directly measure the changing attraction of city and suburb locations for whites and blacks of different social categories. Part of this analysis will compare mover destination propensity rate patterns for a set of the nation's oldest metropolitan areas across periods to determine change in the suburban selectivity of white and black movers in the post-1970 period. Of course, the destination selectivity of movers and its associated population redistribution, registered over a given period of observation, does not necessarily bring about a significant change in aggregate population distribution. Therefore, a second portion of this analysis will employ the Frey (1978a) population redistribution framework to estimate the change in aggregate suburbanization levels that can be uniquely attributed to changes in movers' destination propensity rates observed over three postwar periods.