Assessing The Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Residential Mobility Pathways for the Chicago Metropolitan Area (2006-2015)

This paper takes a novel look at the black box of residential mobility in a metropolitan area in the United States. Past research indicates that in addition to individual motivations for residential mobility being diverse,... [ view full abstract ]

This paper takes a novel look at the black box of residential mobility in a metropolitan area in the United States. Past research indicates that in addition to individual motivations for residential mobility being diverse, that market and regulatory filters, and overall effects of mobility are likewise diverse and mediated by numerous contextual factors. In this paper, I analyze patterns of residential mobility at the household level for the Chicago, Illinois Metropolitan Area. Drawing upon a novel source of longitudinal household residential location data, I construct 10-year residential mobility histories for over 8.1 million households living in the metropolitan area. Using community detection methods, I parse out spatial and temporal relationships between origin and destination neighborhoods based upon more than 1.2 million moves made over this 10 year period. This work presents a novel approach for identifying common housing mobility pathways, with substantial implications for policy-relevant regional trends including population loss, the suburbanization of poverty, and continued patterns of racial and economic segregation