The impact of regional and local population trends on suburban poverty and ethnoracial composition change: A shift‐share analysis of the Chicago metropolitan area in the 2000s

Abstract

Demographic and socioeconomic composition changes in neighbourhoods are often the result of local factors (e.g., gentrification or disinvestment) that promote population growth of certain ethnoracial and socioeconomic groups over others, and regional demographic and economic trends that affect metropolitan areas as a whole. This exploratory analysis isolates the portion of poverty and ethnoracial composition change in suburbs that is attributable to regional trends from local factors. The analysis is conducted for the Chicago–Joliet–Naperville metropolitan area during the 2000s. The results show that processes such as suburban poverty and growing minority populations are to a large extent attributable to the shrinking nonpoor White population. This change in the number of nonpoor Whites in suburbs seems to be related to regional population trends, whereas much of the population change of nonpoor and poor minorities is linked to local neighbourhood conditions.