447793

793QuillianAmerican Sociological Review

2012
ASR77310.1177/0003122412447

American Sociological Review

Segregation and Poverty 77(3) 354­–379

© American Sociological
Association 2012
Concentration:  The Role of DOI: 10.1177/0003122412447793
http://asr.sagepub.com

Three Segregations

Lincoln Quilliana

Abstract
A key argument of Massey and Denton’s (1993) American Apartheid is that racial residential
segregation and non-white group poverty rates combine interactively to produce spatially
concentrated poverty. Despite a compelling theoretical rationale, empirical tests of this
proposition have been negative or mixed. This article develops a formal decomposition
model that expands Massey’s model of how segregation, group poverty rates, and other
spatial conditions combine to form concentrated poverty. The revised decomposition model
allows for income effects on cross-race neighborhood residence and interactive combinations
of multiple spatial conditions in the formation of concentrated poverty. Applying the
model to data reveals that racial segregation and income segregation within race contribute
importantly to poverty concentration, as Massey argued. Almost equally important for poverty
concentration, however, is the disproportionate poverty of blacks’ and Hispanics’ other-race
neighbors. It is thus more accurate to describe concentrated poverty in minority communities
as resulting from three segregations: racial segregation, poverty-status segregation within race,
and segregation from high- and middle-income members of other racial groups. The missing
interaction Massey expected in empirical tests can be found with proper accounting for the
factors in the expanded model.

Keywords
neighborhoods, poverty concentration, racial inequality, segregation

“Because of racial segregation, a significant In the United States, a notable difference

share of black America is condemned to
experience a social environment where pov-
erty and joblessness are the norm, where a
majority of children are born out of wed-
lock, where most families are on welfare,
where educational failure prevails, and
where social and physical deterioration
abound. Through prolonged exposure to
such an environment, black chances for
social and economic success are drastically
reduced.” – Massey and Denton, American
Apartheid, p. 2
in the typical lives of whites, blacks, and His-
panics is the economic class of the people in
their social environments. White middle-class
families overwhelmingly live in middle-class
neighborhoods and send their children to
a
Northwestern University
Corresponding Author:
Lincoln Quillian, Department of Sociology, 1810
Chicago Avenue, Evanston, IL 60208-1330
E-mail: l-quillian@northwestern.edu
Quillian 355
middle-class schools. Many black and His-
panic middle-class parents, however, live in
working-class or poor neighborhoods and
send their children to high-poverty schools.
About one in three poor white families live in
poor neighborhoods and send their children to
high-poverty schools, compared to two in
three poor black and Hispanic families.1
Much evidence indicates that the socioec-
onomic levels of residential neighborhoods
and schools affect quality of life and life
chances. Concentrated disadvantage in neigh-
borhoods is one of the most durable predic-
tors of high rates of violent crime, and much
of the racial gap in exposure to violence is
explained by differences in neighborhood dis-
advantage (Peterson and Krivo 2005). Samp-
son and Wilson (1995) argue that high-poverty
environments are criminogenic, encouraging
youth to pursue criminal rather than legiti-
mate careers. Spatial separation of the afflu-
ent and the poor produces spatial mismatch
between the demand for jobs and job seekers,
contributing to high unemployment in poorer
neighborhoods (Kain 1968; Kasarda 1995;
Mouw 2000). Likewise, high-poverty schools
tend to be ineffective and have disproportion-
ately high dropout rates (Orfield and Lee
2005; Rhumburger and Palardy 2005). Racial
gaps in the affluence of neighborhood and
school environments contribute importantly
to persistent racial inequalities.
In their seminal book, American Apart-
heid, Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton
argue that the concentration of poverty in
black and Latino neighborhoods is the most
pernicious consequence of contemporary
racial residential segregation.2 In their
account, concentration of poverty in minority
communities is due to high levels of racial
segregation and racial gaps in poverty rates,
combined with some segregation of the poor
from the nonpoor within race. They develop
this argument through a series of simulation
models and confirm it through an empirical
analysis of segregation, group poverty rates,
and poverty concentration in U.S. cities.
Their theory is primae facie compelling,
but there has been controversy regarding its
empirical support. At the center of this debate
is Massey’s (1990) core point that segregation
and minority poverty rates interact, or inten-
sify in combination, to produce concentrated
poverty. Jargowsky (1997), however, found no
evidence of an interactive effect in his analysis
of data on U.S. cities. Massey and Fischer’s
(2000) response and reanalysis found some
support for an interaction but also many nega-
tive results, despite efforts to account for
potential methodological problems. How can
we account for this discrepancy between Mas-
sey’s compelling theoretical model and the
failure of its key prediction to hold in data?
This article develops a new model of how
racial segregation combines with other spatial
and demographic conditions to produce con-
centrated poverty among minority groups.
Massey’s theory emphasizes two forms of
segregation—racial segregation and segrega-
tion of the poor within race—as key causes of
poverty concentration. The decomposition
model developed here reveals that to better
account for concentrated poverty, we must
include a third form of segregation: the segre-
gation of high- and middle-income members
of other racial groups from blacks and His-
panics. Blacks’ and Hispanics’ other-race
neighbors are disproportionately impover-
ished, a factor that contributes to these groups
high contact with neighborhood poverty. The
revised model validates Massey’s core argu-
ments regarding the importance of segrega-
tion, expands his model to include other
important substantive conditions that concen-
trate poverty, and explains the anomaly of the
missing interaction as a result of these omit-
ted conditions.
Background
Two perspectives on the causes of concen-
trated poverty in U.S. cities have dominated
sociology. First are Wilson’s theories about
the confluence of central city deindustrializa-
tion and class-specific migration patterns
among African Americans (Wilson 1987,
1996). Second are Massey and Denton’s theo-
ries emphasizing the importance of racial
356 American Sociological Review 77(3)
residential segregation (Massey and Denton
1993). While these theories are not exhaus-
tive of factors influencing concentrated pov-
erty, Wilson’s and Massey’s perspectives
provide the major sociological accounts of
poverty concentration and its growth in U.S.
cities since the 1970s.
Wilson’s theory of the causes of concen-
trated poverty is part of his broader discus-
sion of the creation of the urban underclass,
which includes poverty concentration as a
key component (Wilson 1987, 1996). Wilson
argues that a series of historical changes pro-
duced poverty concentration in minority com-
munities in urban areas in the 1970s and
1980s. The primary condition he emphasizes
is the deindustrialization of urban cores and
changes in the skill requirements of urban
jobs, which produced spatial and skill mis-
matches of blue-collar inner-city workers
with new urban economies based on services.
The result was a surge in unemployment and
poverty rates in working-class minority
neighborhoods. Wilson also suggests that
with declines in legalized segregation, mid-
dle-class blacks increasingly moved away
from black neighborhoods and into white
neighborhoods, leaving behind poorer blacks.
These two historical changes provide the
main pillars of Wilson’s theory of the rise in
concentrated poverty. His wide-ranging dis-
cussion also encompasses several other pro-
cesses, including the declining prevalence of
two-parent families and dysfunctional cul-
tural responses resulting from concentrated
unemployment. In Wilson’s account, these
processes in the 1970s and 1980s led to
neighborhoods with low rates of employ-
ment, high rates of poverty, and correspond-
ingly high levels of social problems.
Massey and Denton’s (1993) theory of
poverty concentration responds to and builds
from Wilson’s theory. Although Wilson’s and
Massey’s disagreements have attracted much
attention, they agree on many points. Massey
accepts Wilson’s central contention that
deindustrialization and growing joblessness have
been key factors driving the increasing con-
centration of poverty in minority communities
and Wilson’s arguments about the deleterious
consequences of concentrated poverty. Mas-
sey disagrees with Wilson on two major
points, one general and one specific. The gen-
eral disagreement is that Wilson overlooks the
importance of continuing racial segregation,
which concentrates the effect of changing
economic conditions on black and Hispanic
neighborhoods. Without racial segregation as
a persistent and actively maintained condition,
Massey argues deindustrialization would not
have had such devastating effects on minority
neighborhoods, and few neighborhoods would
experience extremes of poverty concentration.
Massey’s specific disagreement with Wilson
is that he suggests black middle-class out-
migration did not occur, or at least not to any
significant extent (see Massey, Gross, and
Shibuya 1994). Correspondingly, Massey
finds that racial residential segregation per-
sists at high levels for African Americans
regardless of income (Massey and Denton
1993; Massey and Fischer 1999).
Massey’s theory of racial segregation and
poor neighborhood formation is based on
population dynamics of segregation in the
context of racial inequality in poverty rates.
The core idea is simple: racial segregation
separates high-poverty racial groups from
low-poverty racial groups. The result of this
separation is that poverty is concentrated in
communities of high-poverty racial groups
while low-poverty racial groups are shielded
from poverty contact. By adding some degree
of poverty-status segregation within race,
poverty is further concentrated, producing
high neighborhood poverty contact for the
poor of high-poverty racial groups.
Massey illustrates this theory through a
series of simple simulations of hypothetical
cities with identical demographic profiles
except for the level of segregation (first pub-
lished in Massey [1990] and later reproduced
with small modifications in chapter 5 of
American Apartheid). Neighborhoods are
represented as 16 boxes within a larger square
that represents a city. The city has only black
and white residents. The black population of
each city has a 20 percent poverty rate and the
Quillian 357
white population a 10 percent poverty rate.
Massey shows that as segregation increases
across four hypothetical cities, the level of
neighborhood poverty contact for blacks
increases sharply, while it decreases for
whites. Adding poverty-status segregation
within race to the simulation further increases
average poverty contact for the black poor,
resulting in highly concentrated poverty in
some black neighborhoods.
These simulations illustrate that segrega-
tion matters more for poverty concentration
as the segregated non-white group’s poverty
rate increases, and changes in non-white pov-
erty rates translate more strongly into neighbor-
hood poverty in more segregated metropolitan
areas. In statistical terms, this represents an
interaction: segregation and group poverty
intensify each other’s effects in producing
spatially concentrated poverty in minority
communities.
Massey argues it is the interactive combi-
nation of segregation and racial group pov-
erty disparities that explains why most of the
processes that Wilson emphasized would
have much less impact on concentrating pov-
erty were it not for racial segregation. The
disproportionate impact of deindustrialization
on working-class minority workers became a
disproportionate impact on working-class
minority neighborhoods because of segrega-
tion. This produced the double-disadvantage
of personal and contextual poverty for many
poor blacks and Hispanics. Massey also notes
that a recession that increases minority pov-
erty rates in a segregated city can begin a
downward economic spiral in which demand
for local businesses declines, which harms
neighborhood residents, which then poten-
tially harms local businesses further. The net
result of these processes is that black and
Hispanic “chances for social and economic
success are drastically reduced” (Massey and
Denton 1993:2).
Massey and Wilson’s disagreement about
black middle-class out-migration is linked to
their debates about the role of segregation in
neighborhood poverty concentration. In his
theory of black middle-class out-migration,
Wilson describes how desegregation can
increase poverty concentration if movement
into white neighborhoods occurs primarily
among middle-class blacks, leaving poorer
blacks segregated by race and class. By con-
trast, Massey describes desegregation as
occurring equally over income levels, thus
reducing poverty concentration by mixing
lower-poverty racial groups (whites and
Asians) with higher-poverty racial groups
(blacks and Hispanics). As this contrast
reveals, segregation’s effect on poverty con-
centration depends on possible patterns of
class-selectivity in processes of segregation
or desegregation. Wilson and Massey come to
opposite conclusions about the poverty-con-
centrating effects of desegregation because
they make different assumptions about class-
selectivity in desegregation processes.
Empirical Studies
Interaction of Racial Segregation and
Group Poverty Rates
To provide empirical support for Massey’s
model of the importance of racial segregation
in concentrating poverty, Massey and col-
leagues focused on the idea that an interactive
combination of segregation and poverty rates
produces concentrated poverty in minority
communities. Using data from decennial cen-
suses with large metropolitan areas as units of
analysis, Massey and Eggers (1990) found a
significant interaction of race group poverty
rates and racial segregation in regression
models predicting levels of metropolitan
neighborhood poverty concentration. They
conclude that their model is supported and
that “segregation is the key factor accounting
for variation in the concentration of poverty”
(p. 1183). A few years later, Massey and
Denton (1993) presented many of these argu-
ments as central conclusions of American
Apartheid.
This conclusion, however, would soon be
challenged. Published shortly after Wilson’s
and Massey’s initial statements, Jargowsky’s
(1997) Poverty and Place was an influential
358 American Sociological Review 77(3)
empirical analysis of many of Wilson’s and
Massey’s ideas. Jargowsky found some evi-
dence for and against Massey’s and Wilson’s
specific hypotheses, but overall, he provides
more support for Wilson’s perspective. In
particular, he found that metropolitan oppor-
tunity structure—the average level of income
or poverty—is by far the best predictor of
metropolitan neighborhood poverty concen-
tration. His results contradict Massey’s key
point about an interaction between racial seg-
regation and measures of the opportunity
structure (including measures of group pov-
erty rates). That is, he finds no tendency for
concentrated poverty rates to be especially
elevated in metropolitan areas in which racial
segregation and high group poverty rates are
combined, contradicting Massey’s key pre-
diction that these conditions combine interac-
tively to concentrate poverty.
Jargowsky’s (1997) analysis parallels Mas-
sey and Eggers’s (1990) earlier test of their
model in most respects. Like Massey and Egg-
ers, Jargowsky models metropolitan poverty
concentration as a function of various metro-
politan factors, including race group poverty
rates and racial segregation, allowing for their
interaction. Unlike Massey and Eggers, how-
ever, he includes the main effects of segrega-
tion and group poverty rates together with their
interaction in the same model; Massey and
Eggers present only the interaction without the
main effects, contrary to standard statistical
practice. Massey and Eggers (1990:1183) jus-
tify this choice as a result of “multicollinearity
among the regressors”—that is, because the
segregation measure and minority poverty rate
are highly correlated with the interaction term
that is the product of these two variables,
which makes it impossible to precisely esti-
mate their separate effects with the interaction
term. Jargowsky argues that this is needed to
avoid the possibility that the interaction is just
capturing a main effect. With main effects of
level of segregation included, none of the
interactions are statistically significant tested
separately or jointly.3 He concludes that Mas-
sey and Eggers results are in error: “the [inter-
action] effect either does not exist or is too
subtle to be demonstrated with the available
data” (p. 183; see also Korenman, Sjaastad,
and Jargowsky 1995).
The final salvo in this debate is from Mas-
sey and Fischer (2000), who present a revised
analysis of interactions between segregation
and group poverty rates in response to Jar-
gowsky. Recognizing that low variation in the
extent of segregation across metropolitan
areas can contribute to multicollinearity prob-
lems, they increase variation by treating
whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians of each
metropolitan area as separate cases, using seg-
regation measures computed between each
group and whites. Each group-by-metropoli-
tan case is assigned to one of four segregation
categories based on its level of segregation
from whites: zero, low, moderate, and high.4
Massey and Fischer estimate models sepa-
rately for the four categories, then compare
coefficients across models and look for inter-
action as indicated by sharper slopes in higher-
segregation metropolitan-group combinations.
This ingenious procedure substantially
increases the variation in segregation, reduc-
ing the severity of multicollinearity problems.
In a shift from the specification of Massey
and Eggers (1990), Massey and Fischer
(2000) use several measures of racial group
income levels (mean income, inequality, and
a class sorting index) rather than measures of
group poverty rates. They hypothesize inter-
actions among each of these measures of
group income and segregation.5 Because
there are four categories of segregation and
several measures of group income, many
potential sets of coefficients can be examined
for consistency with their expectation of
interactions between the group income meas-
ures and segregation. In their text, Massey
and Fischer highlight coefficients that show
stronger effects of measures of group income
level on rate of concentrated neighborhood
poverty as segregation increases, concluding
there is support for Massey’s underlying
model of interaction of group income and
segregation in forming concentrated poverty.
Yet a careful reading of their tables also
shows that many of the coefficients fail to
Quillian 359
correspond to Massey’s prediction of interac-
tion. Their expectation of interaction between
segregation and the income measures sug-
gests the group income variables’ largest
coefficients should be found in the model
estimated over highly segregated metropoli-
tan areas, with coefficients becoming pro-
gressively smaller as segregation decreases.
Of the 15 sets of coefficients they present,
only one has the largest coefficient in the high
segregation category and coefficients declin-
ing to the smallest in the zero segregation
category, as predicted by the idea of interac-
tive effects among these variables.6 Only
about half of the paired contrasts (e.g., high
versus medium segregation) work out in the
correct direction. This is about the number we
would expect by chance if there were no
interaction.7 Despite their efforts to support
their key hypothesis and their use of a clever
procedure to increase variation in segrega-
tion, a close reading of Massey and Fischer’s
tables actually provides much evidence that
contradicts their claim of interaction of segre-
gation and group income level in forming
spatially concentrated poverty. Indeed, Mas-
sey and Fischer seem to recognize (but do not
emphasize) the mixed nature of their results,
suggesting that historical changes may
explain the lack of interaction in the later
years of their analysis.
Middle-Class Black Out-Migration
Wilson’s theory of middle-class black out-
migration claims that more affluent blacks
have moved into white neighborhoods, leav-
ing behind poorer blacks and contributing to
an increase in concentrated poverty. In
response, Massey’s analyses of census and
longitudinal data lead him to conclude that
black middle-class out-migration never hap-
pened on any significant scale (Massey et al.
1994). Several later studies have investigated
Wilson’s black middle-class out-migration
thesis with varied conclusions. Quillian (1999)
found evidence suggesting out-migration pro-
duced increasing spatial separation between
poor and nonpoor blacks without lasting racial
desegregation because of white flight, while
Crowder and South (2005) found no increases
in rates of migration into white neighborhoods
in the 1970s (see also Pattillo-McCoy 2000).
Several differences in the questions addressed
and methods used by these studies may explain
these differences. As relevant for understand-
ing racial segregation effects, however, stud-
ies agree that affluent blacks remain only a bit
less segregated from whites than are less afflu-
ent blacks (Massey and Denton 1993; Massey
and Fischer 1999; but see also Alba, Logan,
and Stults 2000). This is consistent with
Massey’s assumption that segregation and
desegregation are processes that occur equally
across all income groups.
Revising the Massey
Model
Limits of Massey’s Analysis
In light of Massey and Denton’s convincing
theoretical arguments and Massey’s simula-
tions, results contradicting the presence of an
interaction of segregation and group poverty
rates are puzzling. Indeed, even Jargowsky
(1997:183) acknowledges that “the interac-
tion is logical conceptually and theoretically.”
The real question is: the theoretical rationale
is compelling, so why does this interaction
effect not appear in data as theory predicts?
Multicollinearity was the initial suggestion,
but this possibility seems unlikely in light of
the various procedures Jargowsky (1997) and
Massey and Fischer (2000) use to deal with
this problem, with little change in their results.
On initial consideration, it is difficult to
imagine how Massey’s model of segregation
and poverty concentration could be wrong. A
major appeal of Massey’s conceptual model
is that it spells out an invariate population
process: segregation between groups with
unequal poverty rates must concentrate pov-
erty for the higher-poverty group regardless
of the other characteristics of individuals or
neighborhoods.
Yet, a close inspection of Massey’s simula-
tion model shows it builds in some subtle
substantive assumptions regarding spatial
patterning of race and poverty status. His
360 American Sociological Review 77(3)
neighborhood-box simulation allows for race
segregation and income segregation within
race, but not for the possibility that processes
of segregation might be income-selective. For
instance, Massey excludes the possibility that
black residents of white neighborhoods might
be especially likely to be nonpoor. Massey’s
model also excludes the possibility that
whites’ income affects their potential contact
with blacks. But if either of these assumptions
are incorrect, income-selective patterns of
segregation-desegregation could make deseg-
regation operate more like Wilson hypothe-
sized, that is, it increases rather than decreases
poverty concentration.
Massey and colleagues also assume that
other spatial conditions, like group size and
the level of within-race poverty-status segre-
gation, have additive and linear effects on
poverty concentration. This assumption is
most evident in the regressions Massey and
colleagues use to test the theory (Massey and
Eggers 1990; Massey and Fischer 2000). In
these regressions, spatial conditions, like per-
centage of the metropolitan area that is black
and poverty-status segregation, are used as
regression controls and represented as addi-
tive predictors. Yet relative group size should
interact with segregation in affecting contact,
suggesting interactive rather than additive
combinations among conditions. A model that
allows for multiple interactions will be more
complicated but will more accurately capture
the dynamic way these forces combine.
A Formal Model of Segregation and
Poverty Concentration
Massey’s arguments implied a mathematically
necessary relationship between segregation,
group poverty rates, and poverty concentra-
tion. But rather than demonstrate this through
a formal demographic model, he illustrated
how it worked in a hypothetical city repre-
sented as a simulation. A formal model has the
advantage of allowing us to derive exactly
how these population quantities must relate to
each other, discerning relations that may be
hidden or vaguely understood from a simula-
tion like Massey employed.
To develop a formal model requires meas-
ures of the main outcome and inputs in the
Massey model. The main outcome is poverty
concentration for the focal racial group: blacks
or Hispanics in this analysis. The main inputs
are the focal race group’s racial segregation
from others, poverty rates for the focal racial
group and others, and poverty-status segrega-
tion within groups. Another input is relative
sizes of racial groups in a city, although in Mas-
sey’s simulations, the proportion of blacks and
whites are held equal and thus not explicitly
discussed. To match real data, however, we
must allow relative group size to vary. As dis-
cussed earlier, Massey implicitly assumes that
income levels do not affect patterns of cross-
race contact. To the extent this assumption does
not hold, we must build this into the model to
represent the real situation of U.S. cities.
The following describes the parameters of
the model in more detail and how I derived
the formal model. This section necessarily
relies on equations. Readers who wish to skip
the formal details of the model can go to the
beginning of the next section, which dis-
cusses the interpretation and implications of
the formal model.
Measuring inputs and outputs of the
Massey model. I measure poverty concentra-
tion using the P* index, computed with
group-poor contact with poor persons (of any
race). Group-poor are poor members of the focal
race group. This index varies from 0 to 1 and
can be interpreted as the proportion poor in the
average census tract of a poor member of a
group for the metropolitan area for which it is
computed. Following Lieberson and Carter
(1982), I write the group for whom contact is
computed in subscripts to the left of P*, the
group with whom they are in contact in sub-
scripts to the right; and contact of a poor member
of the focal group (group poor) with poor of any
race is denoted gpP*p. This is the same index of
poverty concentration used by Massey and col-
leagues in their empirical work (Massey and
Eggers 1990; Massey and Fischer 2000).
In the model, segregation is indicated by
the variance ratio index of segregation. Past
analyses of segregation, including Massey
Quillian 361

(1990), most often use the index of dissimi- For instance, the average neighborhood
larity to assess segregation. Using the dis- poverty rate for poor Hispanic residents of
similarity index would maintain convention, Chicago (i.e., the concentration of Hispanic
but it is not well-suited for use with the P* poverty) is .197; this is the sum of the aver-
measure of contact, because the dissimilarity age proportion of their neighbors’ Hispanic
index and P* have different mathematical and poor (.133) and the average proportion
bases. The variance ratio index is in the same non-Hispanic and poor (.064). Contact with
family of measures as the exposure index; its own-group poor and other-race poor will be
use maintains conceptual consistency in differentially affected by segregation between
measurement and facilitates a formal analysis group g and persons not in group g (ng).
because it has a straightforward connection We can add segregation, as well as related
with P* contact measures.8 The variance ratio measures that capture forms of cross-race
index of segregation (V ) is related to the P* poverty contact and poverty-status effects on
contact index by the relation: own-race contact, using ratios of P* indexes
related to these different forms of contact:
g P *ng = png (1 − V( g )( ng ) ) (1)
 gp P *g   gp P *gp 
where png is the proportion of the population gp P * p = g P *g   
 g P *g   gp P *g 
that is nongroup (i.e., not in the gth group or
other-race), and V(g)(ng) is the variance ratio  g P *ngp   gp P *ngp 
index of segregation between the group of + g P *ng   
 g P *ng   g P *ngp  (3)
interest and nongroup persons (or other-race
persons). Like the index of dissimilarity, the
variance ratio index varies from 0 to 1 and has Multiplying out these terms returns to
good formal properties as a measure of seg- Equation 2. Equation 3 adds measures of
regation (James and Taeuber 1985). The Ap- contact with own and other races, which get
pendix shows formulas for P* and V. closer to isolating a segregation effect, and
measures of effects of poverty status on con-
A formal model. In developing a formal tact with own-group (gpP*g) and other groups
model to represent Massey’s simulation, we (gpP*ng). In addition, Equation 3 includes
want to express the outcome of group-poor measures of poverty-status effects on contact
contact with poor (gpP*p) as a function of the with own-group poor (gpP*g) and other-group
key parts of Massey’s model: racial segrega- poor (gpP*ngp).
tion, poverty-status segregation within race, Using the fact that gP*ng = 1– ngP*g and
group poverty rates, and other distinct and doing some algebra allows us to separate out
interpretable demographic conditions that are group poverty rates, which are a key element
important for poverty concentration. In bring- of Massey’s model, and also provides terms
ing segregation into the model, a useful that are more interpretable:
property of the P* index is that it is additively
decomposable into contact with subgroups.
Total poverty contact for poor members of a  g P *gp 
racial group in a metropolitan area is the sum  g P*g 
 gp P *gp 
of contact with poor members of their own gp P * p = (1 − g P *ng ) Pov g   
 Pov g   g P *gp 
group (gp) and poor persons not of their own  
racial or ethnic group (ngp):  g P *ngp 
 g P *ng 
 gp P *ngp 
+ g P *ng Povng   
 Pov   g P *ngp 
P *p = P *gp + gp P *ngp
ng
gp gp (2)  
362 American Sociological Review 77(3)
I then substitute the segregation measure in
place of the own-race and other-race contact
measures (by using the substitution shown in
Equation 1) and rearrange:
 P*   gp P *gp 
P * p = Pov g  gp g  +
gp
 g P * g   g P *gp 
  g P *ngp 
 er-race average (g → ngp).
 g P *ng 
 gp P *ngp 
png (1 − V( g )( ng ) )  Povng  
  Povng   g P *ngp 
  
 g P *gp  
 g P*g 
 gp P *gp  
− Pov g   
 Pov g   g P *gp  
  
Each part of this formula has an interpret-
able meaning. Renaming component parts
from Equation 4 gives the final component
formula:
gp P * p = Pov g (GPxG )(GPxGP ) +
png (1 − V( g )( ng ) )  Povng (GxNGP )(GPxNGP )
− Pov g (GPxG )(GPxGP )
This final decomposition shows how group-
poor contact with poor is related to several con-
ditions. Poverty concentration is determined by
the group poverty rate (Povg), the other-race
(nongroup) poverty rate (Povng), segregation
group/other-race (V ), relative group size ( png),
and four additional components:
GPxG: A ratio indicating own-group dispropor-
tionality among the group poor’s neighbors.
If this component is greater than one, poor
group members have proportionately more
own-group neighbors than the average for
their group (gp → g). This captures any
poverty-status effect on own-group contact.
GPxGP: A ratio indicating poverty dispropor-
tionately among the group poor’s own-race
neighbors. If this component is greater than
one, then poor group members tend to have
more poor own-group neighbors than aver-
age for their group. This can be interpreted
as a measure of poverty-status segregation
within race for a group and is present in
Massey’s model (gp → gp).
GxNGP: A ratio indicating poverty dispropor-
tionality among group members’ other-race
neighbors. If this component is greater than
one, then group members’ other-race neigh-
bors are more likely to be poor than the oth-

GPxNGP: A ratio indicating poverty dispropor-
tionality among poor group members’ other-
race neighbors. If this component is greater
than one, then poor group members tend to
have poorer other-race neighbors than the
(4) average for all group members (gp → ngp).
A value of one for these four components
is like no effect or no disproportionality: the
term multiplies out of the decomposition. For
instance, a one on GPxG indicates that poor
group members are no more likely than other
group members to have own-group neigh-
bors. Of these components, only GPxGP is
represented in Massey and colleagues’ mod-
(5) els or explicitly discussed in his simulations.
GPxGP can be interpreted as a measure of
poverty-status segregation within race, simi-
lar in concept to the index of dissimilarity
between poor and nonpoor.
To help understand how this model oper-
ates, consider blacks in the Chicago metro-
politan area. The average neighborhood
poverty rate for a poor black resident of Chi-
cago is 34.6 percent (gpP*p = .346). This is the
measure of black poverty concentration for
Chicago and the outcome we seek to under-
stand. Inputs for Chicago include blacks’ seg-
regation from other-race persons, V(g)(ng) =
.667; the poverty rate of Chicago’s black
population, 24.6 percent (Povg = .246); the
poverty rate of Chicago’s non-black popula-
tion, 7.3 percent (Povng = .073); and the per-
centage of the population that is not black in
the Chicago metropolitan area, 81.4 percent
(png = .814). The final inputs are the four dis-
proportionality ratios indicating that poor
blacks have about 9 percent more black
neighbors than does the black population on
average (GPxG = 1.09); poor blacks have 49
Quillian 363
percent more poor black neighbors than does
the black population on average (GPxGP =
1.49, a measure of class segregation); blacks’
non-black neighbors are, on average, 66 per-
cent more likely to be poor than the average
for non-blacks in the Chicago area (GxNGP =
1.66); and poor blacks’ non-black neighbors
are 8 percent more likely to be poor than are
nonpoor blacks’ non-black neighbors (GPx
NGP = 1.08).
Applying the formula from Equation 5
with the Chicago components, we get the
following:
gp P* p = (.246)(1.09)(1.49) + (.814 ) (1 − .667)
(.073)(1.66)(1.08) − (.246)(1.09)(1.49) = .326
This final number is exactly equal to the aver-
age neighborhood poverty rate for poor blacks
in Chicago (32.6 percent). In fact, we can ex-
actly predict the level of poverty concentra-
tion for any race or ethnic group in any city
based on these components and this model.
We can also use the model to address what
effect a change in one set of conditions would
have, holding the other components constant.
In Chicago, segregation is a particularly im-
portant component. For instance, if black–
non-black segregation in Chicago were to
drop to the black mean of .317, holding other
conditions constant, black poverty concentra-
tion would drop from .326 to .250.
To understand the potential role of segre-
gation and minority poverty rates interacting
to form concentrated poverty, it is helpful to
rewrite Equation 5 in a form that multiplies
out some terms:
gp P * p = Pov g (GPxG )(GPxGP )
+ png Povng (GxNGP )(GPxNGP )
− png Pov g (GPxG )(GPxGP )
− pngV( g )( ng ) Povng (GxNGP )(GPxNGP )
+ pngV( g )( ng ) Pov g (GPxG )(GPxGP ) (6)
Note that segregation (V(g)(ng)) multiplied by
the group’s poverty rate (Povg) appears in the
last term. This multiplication indicates that
segregation and the group’s poverty rate in-
teract, or intensify each other’s effect, in the
production of spatially concentrated poverty.
The fact that this multiplication of terms oc-
curs in the decomposition is consistent with
the interaction that Massey expected.
Interpretation of the Complete
Model of Segregation and Poverty
Concentration
The final decomposition model (Equation 5
and, in different form, Equation 6) provides a
way to understand how segregation on the
basis of race and the focal racial group’s pov-
erty rate combine to produce concentrated
poverty. It is an improved version of Massey’s
conceptual model, illustrated clearly in his
simulation, that racial segregation, the group
poverty rate, and poverty-status segregation
within race affect the spatial concentration of
group poverty. The model shows that to fully
specify how segregation and group poverty
rates affect concentrated poverty, we must
introduce other features of the space over
which these conditions are evaluated. There is
no error term in the decomposition. With the
final model (Equation 5 or 6), we can perfectly
predict the level of concentrated poverty a
group experiences in a metropolitan area as a
function of the indicated components.
From the model, we see that segregation,
the group poverty rate, and the extent of
poverty-status segregation within race affect
concentrated poverty, as Massey emphasized.
But the connection of these factors to poverty
concentration also depends on factors that
Massey implicitly held constant in his simula-
tion model, such as the poverty rate among
everyone not a member of the segregated
group and relative group size. Segregation
(appearing as the 1 – V term in Equation 5)
interacts (multiplies) with the difference in
poverty between group and other-race mem-
bers (these terms subtract) rather than with
the raw group poverty rate. This is because
segregation becomes more consequential for
poverty concentration to the extent that group
364 American Sociological Review 77(3)
and other-race members have different pov-
erty rates. Segregation also matters more
when other-race persons are a large share of
the total population. In effect, the formula is
translating from segregation to contact, and
contact with another group is equal to the
product of one minus segregation from the
other group and relative size of the other
group (White 1986). Neither of these condi-
tions had been properly included in past
empirical tests of Massey’s model because
past tests assumed additive, linear effects.
Massey’s simulation omitted consideration
of how income-selective patterns may affect
cross-race contact. The decomposition shows
this as three terms representing the possibility
that poor group members are especially likely
to have contact with their own group (GPxG),
that other-race members who group members
are in contact with are more (or less) likely to
be poor than the other-race average (GxNGP),
and that poor members of the group are espe-
cially likely to be in contact with poor other-
race persons (GPxNGP, effectively cross-race
income segregation).
We can now return to Massey’s hypothe-
sized interaction between segregation and
poverty concentration. The decomposition
includes terms in which race segregation and
the group poverty rate multiply. This is con-
sistent with Massey’s expectation of interac-
tions between these conditions in the
production of concentrated poverty. But the
model also shows that several other conditions
interact with segregation—that is, several
terms multiply with segregation in the for-
mula—strengthening or weakening its effects.
These effects have intuitive explanations.
Strengthening segregation effects are the
percentage of the population who are other-
race, the effect of poverty on contact with
one’s own-group, and group poverty-status
separation among group members (multiply-
ing in the last term of Equation 6). If the
proportion of the population other-race is
greater, change in segregation results in
greater changes in contact with other race
groups. If the poor have more own-group
contact, the own-group poverty rate matters
more for poverty concentration. And if
poor and nonpoor group members are more
separated spatially, increased own-race con-
tact (segregation) results in greater poverty
concentration.
Other factors weaken segregation’s effect
on poverty concentration. These factors multi-
ply with segregation in Equation 6 and are in
terms that are negative in sign. These include
the poverty rate of other-race persons, group
members’ tendency to be in contact with poor
other-group members, and poor group mem-
bers’ likelihood of being in contact with poor
other-group members. As these conditions
become stronger, a decrease in segregation
increasingly implies that poor group members
will swap poor own-group neighbors for poor
other-group neighbors, producing little or no
deconcentration of poverty.
Because many factors strengthen or
weaken segregation effects, Massey’s point
about the importance of segregation for pov-
erty concentration in any particular context
holds under some, but not all, conditions.
Whether conditions in U.S. cities are right for
Massey’s conclusions about the importance
of segregation and its interactive combination
with group poverty rates is an empirical ques-
tion I consider in the next section.
Approach And Data
To better understand the poverty concentra-
tion model and how it may help account for
the missing interaction Massey’s framework
predicted, we need to examine the model in
light of values the components actually take
on across U.S. cities. My analysis involves
two steps. First, I use data to compute compo-
nents of the decomposition model (shown in
Equations 5 and 6) and apply these to the
decomposition to better understand its impli-
cations. Second, I use the model of the math-
ematical relationships among these conditions
to investigate the lack of interaction in the
basic regression models of Jargowsky (1997)
and Massey and Fischer (2000).
I use census tract data from the 2000 Cen-
sus, which are a more recent version of the
data used in past studies.9 I computed sum-
mary statistics for metropolitan areas with at
Quillian 365
least 20,000 members of the focal racial
group, because segregation measures have
little meaning when a minority group is very
small. For simplicity, I focus on cross-sec-
tional analysis using the 2000 Census,
although I also examined the situation using
change regressions from 1990 to 2000 and
many similar results hold to those I report
here. I also performed the basic analysis in
cross-section with the 1980 Census, which
generated identical substantive conclusions
(tables available from the author on request).
As discussed earlier, I follow Massey and
Eggers’s (1990) and Massey and Fischer’s
(2000) empirical studies in using the P* index
of census tract contact between poor mem-
bers of the focal racial group and the poor of
any group to measure group poverty concen-
tration. Poverty is defined as membership in a
family with income below the official federal
poverty line, which is how it appears as
counts in data on census tracts. To examine
segregation effects, I use blacks and Hispan-
ics as focal race groups, because these groups
have higher poverty rates than whites and are
the groups Massey focuses on in his model.
Earlier versions of this article also included
results for Asian Americans and pooled
results combining blacks, Hispanics, and
Asians into one model. These tables are avail-
able from the author on request.
The Decomposition Model
Versus the Massey Model
How Well Do the Massey Model’s
Implicit Assumptions Hold?
Massey’s simulations assume income does
not influence racial segregation: that is, he
assumes the poverty rate of blacks living in
white neighborhoods is equal to blacks’ over-
all rate, and that of whites living in black
neighborhoods is equal to the overall white
rate. A key difference of the decomposition
model from Massey’s model is that it drops
this assumption.
In the decomposition, income effects on
cross-race contact are represented with three
disproportionality measures. These measures
are the extent to which poor members of the
focal race group have more own-group neigh-
bors than do nonpoor members (GPxG), the
extent to which group members’ other-race
neighbors are poorer than average for their
group (GxNGP), and the extent to which poor
group members’ other-race neighbors tend to
be poorer than average for their group
(GPxNGP). Massey’s simulation implicitly
assumed no disproportionality, which is like a
value of 1 in the decomposition. (The fourth
disproportionality measure, GPxGP, repre-
sents poverty-status segregation among group
members and is included in Massey’s simula-
tions.) The disproportionality measures are
the top four components in Table 1.
Numbers greater than one in the GPxG row
(the first row) of Table 1 indicate that poor
members of non-white groups tend to have
more own-group neighbors than do nonpoor
group members. If this pattern is strong, it
might undercut Massey’s arguments about seg-
regation and poverty status. But these ratios,
on average, are between 1.1 and 1.2, not too far
off from the poverty-status proportionality
(1.0) in contact with own-group members that
Massey’s model implicitly assumed. While
poor members of these groups do have more
own-group neighbors, on average they have
only 10 to 20 percent more own-group contact.
For blacks, this is consistent with the long-
standing finding that middle-class blacks have
more non-black neighbors than do poor blacks,
but not many more (Massey and Denton 1993;
Massey and Fischer 1999).
By contrast, numbers in the GxNGP row
(third row) indicate that blacks’ and Hispan-
ics’ other-race neighbors are significantly
more likely to be poor than the other-race
average. The values are 1.549 and 1.366 for
blacks and Hispanics, respectively. This is
inconsistent with Massey’s assumption that
income does not affect cross-race contact.
Because contact with other-race neighbors
tends to be with disproportionately impover-
ished persons, this weakens desegregation’s
potential to reduce black and Hispanic pov-
erty contact, and thus the segregation effect.
366 American Sociological Review 77(3)

Table 1. Metropolitan Means and Standard Deviations of Components of Neighborhood Poor

Contact Decomposition by Group

Variable Black Hispanic

Disproportionality Measures
GPxG: own-group disproportionality in neighbors of 1.127 1.160
group poor (gp ≥ g) (.075) (.107)
GPxGP: poverty disproportionality in own-race neighbors of 1.388 1.419
group poor (gp ≥ gp) (.214) (.215)
GxNGP: poverty disproportionality in other-race neighbors of 1.549 1.366
group (g ≥ ngp) (.377) (.348)
GPxNGP: poverty disproportionality in other-race neighbors of 1.136 1.199
group poor (gp ≥ ngp) (.132) (.129)

Other Components
Segregation Group/Not Group (V(g)(ng)) .317 .158
(.153) (.097)
Group Poverty Rate (Povg) .254 .221
(.062) (.063)
Nongroup Poverty Rate (Povng) .095 .100
(.031) (.033)
Percentage Not Group (png) .830 .811
(.109) (.181)

N (Metropolitan Areas) 166 144

Note: Standard deviations are in parentheses.

Whether this may account for the lack of
interaction remains to be seen, but Massey’s
discussion of poverty concentration does not
account for this condition.
Factor GPxNGP indicates the extent to
which poor members of non-white groups are
especially likely to have poor other-race
neighbors; this is segregation on the basis of
poverty status between members of different
race groups. The means for blacks and His-
panics are 1.136 and 1.199, respectively,
which indicate that poor group members are
more likely than nonpoor members to have
poor other-race neighbors, but this parameter
is not far from Massey’s implicit assumption
of 1.0 (or no difference) in his simulations.
The final component, GPxGP, is shown in
row two of Table 1. This indicates poverty-
status segregation within racial groups, which
exists for all groups (ratios greater than one).
Income segregation within race was built into
Massey’s simulation.
The bottom of Table 1 shows all other
components of the decomposition model.
These include the extent of segregation from
other-race members, group members’ poverty
rate, other-race members’ poverty rate, and
the percentage of metropolitan residents who
are other-race. Segregation is measured by
the variance ratio index of segregation
between each group (black or Hispanic) and
the nongroup (everyone else).10
Results show that blacks and Hispanics
have somewhat similar spatial patterns with
regard to poverty concentration, except for
the important distinction that blacks are much
more segregated from other groups than are
Hispanics. For blacks and Hispanics, poverty
status matters for poverty concentration
because it affects own-group neighbors’ pov-
erty status, but it has little effect on the pro-
pensity toward other-race contact or other-race
neighbors’ poverty rate.
The Role of Contact with Other-Race
Poor in Poverty Concentration
How important are the conditions omitted
from Massey’s simulations for understanding
population concentration in U.S. cities? To
Quillian 367
Table 2. Changes in Group Concentrated Poverty with Change in Spatial Conditions
Base Poverty Concentration Level (gpP*p)
(poverty concentration level from decomposition
at means of all components)
 
Component
Segregation Group/Not Group (V(g)(ng))
GPxG: own-group disproportionality in
neighbors of group poor (gp ≥ g)
GPxGP (poverty segregation within race):
poverty disproportionality in own-race
neighbors of group poor (gp ≥ gp)
GxNGP: poverty disproportionality in other-race
neighbors of group (g ≥ ngp)
GPxNGP: poverty disproportionality in other-
race neighbors of group poor (gp ≥ ngp)
Note: Other components of the decomposition are held at their means.
address this question, I calculate changes in
poverty concentrations from changes in these
conditions within the range observed in U.S.
cities using the decomposition model.
Table 2 shows how a one standard devia-
tion decline in the indicated factor would
change poverty concentration based on the
decomposition model, with other components
at their metropolitan mean values (from Table
1). The spatial conditions are the dispropor-
tionality measures and racial segregation.11
The base poverty concentration row at the top
gives the level of concentrated poverty with
all components at means.
Changes in all of the spatial conditions have
some impact on poverty concentration. But
results in Table 2 indicate that three conditions
are of primary importance: racial segregation,
poverty status disproportionality within group
(GPxGP, which can be viewed as a measure of
poverty-status segregation within race), and
poverty disproportionality in a group’s other-
race neighbors (GxNGP). Their relative impor-
tance varies by group. Racial segregation is
most important for black concentrated poverty,
corresponding to the fact that blacks have by
far the highest level of segregation from other
groups. Poverty-status segregation contributes
Black Hispanic
.267 .227
 
Change in Poverty Concentration with 1 SD Decrease
(percentage change from base below absolute change)
−.029 −.016
−11.0% −6.9%
−.011 −.011
−4.3% −4.7%
−.027 −.018
−9.9% −7.7%
–.023 −.028
–8.6% −12.5%
–.011 −.012
–4.1% −5.3%
importantly to both black and Hispanic con-
centrated poverty. But most important for His-
panics is poverty disproportionality of
other-race neighbors. Hispanics have many
non-Hispanic neighbors who are dispropor-
tionately poor.
The disproportionate poverty of blacks’
and Hispanics’ other-race neighbors could be
due to their being members of relatively poor
race groups (e.g., Hispanics having many
black neighbors) or because they are dispro-
portionately poor members of their groups
(e.g., Hispanics having disproportionately
poor non-Hispanic white neighbors). In fact,
both conditions contribute to the dispropor-
tionate poverty of blacks’ and Hispanics’
other-race neighbors. Table 3 breaks down
neighborhood poverty contact for the black
and Hispanic poor by the race of the poor
neighbors they are in contact with. Hispanics’
other-race neighbors are disproportionately
black. But Hispanics also have many non-
Hispanic white neighbors whose poverty rate
is significantly above the overall non-His-
panic white poverty rate.
Massey’s theory of poverty concentration
emphasizes racial segregation combined
with racial poverty gaps and notes a role for
368 American Sociological Review 77(3)
Table 3. Metropolitan Average Contact (P*) with Neighborhood Poverty by Contacting and
Contactee Group
Contacting: Poor Members of Indicated Group
 
Group in Contact with
Non-Hispanic White Poor
 
Non-Hispanic Black Poor
 
Hispanic Poor
 
Asian Poor
 
Other (not above) Poor
 
Total Neighborhood Poverty Contact (gpP*p)
 
N 166
Note: Standard deviations are in parentheses.
poverty-status segregation within race. The
decomposition model with data confirms
these two conditions are important in general,
but we should give nearly equal emphasis to
a third condition in evaluating blacks’ and
whites’ disproportionate neighborhood pov-
erty: their other-race neighbors’ dispropor-
tionate poverty. A third form of segregation,
blacks’ and Hispanics’ segregation from mid-
dle- and high-income members of other
groups, thus plays an important role in pov-
erty concentration.
Implications of the Decomposition
Model for Interaction of Segregation
and Poverty Rates
What does the decomposition model in
Equation 5 imply about the interaction of
segregation and group poverty rates? These
terms multiply in the model, suggesting inter-
action. The magnitude and exact nature of the
interactive effect, however, depends on the
values of other components in the model.
To examine the interaction of segregation
and poverty concentration in the decomposi-
tion model with values typical for U.S. cities,
I predict levels of concentrated poverty from
Black Hispanic
.045 .052
(.022) (.027)
.167 .036
(.074) (.028)
.030 .109
(.036) (.074)
.005 .007
(.009) (.009)
.006 .006
(.004) (.005)
.262 .218
(.055) (.062)
144
the decomposition model (Equation 5) while
holding the other components constant at met-
ropolitan means (by group). I employ five
metropolitan segregation levels, ranging from
segregation two standard deviations below the
mean to two standard deviations above the
mean. Figures 1 and 2 show the level of con-
centrated poverty as group poverty rates
change from this model. The range of varia-
tion in the poverty rate (i.e., the range of x that
the lines show) is plus or minus two standard
deviations from the group poverty rate mean.
This holds all other components of the decom-
position at their means (shown in Table 1),
with their relations specified in the analyti-
cally derived relationship from Equation 5.
Both figures show an interaction of segrega-
tion and the poverty rate: lines tracing poverty
change have sharper slopes for high-segregation
than for low-segregation metropolitan areas.
For blacks in Figure 1, in a highly segregated
city (+2 SD), each 1 percent increase in the
black poverty rate is associated with almost a 1
percent increase in poor blacks’ contact with
poor neighbors; in a low-segregation city (–2
SD), each 1 percent increase in the black pov-
erty rate is associated with about a .3 percent
increase. For Hispanics, shown in Figure 2, in a
Quillian 369

Black Poor Contact with Poor (of any race)

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Black Poverty Rate

segregation(V) at mean +1 sd +2 sd –1 sd –2 sd

Figure 1. Black Neighborhood Poverty Concentration and the Black Poverty Rate by
Metropolitan Segregation Level
Note: Predictions are from decomposition models with other components at black means.

0.5
Hispanic Poor Contact with Poor (of any race)

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Hispanic Poverty Rate

segregation(V) at mean +1 sd +2 sd –1 sd –2 sd

Figure 2. Hispanic Neighborhood Poverty Concentration and the Hispanic Poverty Rate by
Metropolitan Segregation Level
Note: Predictions are from decomposition models with other components at Hispanic means.
370 American Sociological Review 77(3)
high-segregation city, a 1 percent increase in the
Hispanic poverty rate is associated with a .8
percent increase in the Hispanic concentrated
poverty rate; in a low-segregation city, a 1 per-
cent increase in the Hispanic poverty rate is
associated with a .3 percent increase. The
stronger interaction for blacks than Hispanics
outside of the lowest segregation category pri-
marily reflects the fact that segregation is sig-
nificantly higher for blacks than for Hispanics.
As the figures show, a surge in a high-
poverty group’s poverty rate will increase
group poverty concentration substantially
more when the extent of race group with
other-race segregation is high, holding other
conditions constant. Broadly, this demon-
strates that Massey’s theoretical argument is
correct: segregation and poverty concentra-
tion interact for the reasons Massey’s simula-
tion model made clear.
Lack Of Segregation–
Poverty Status
Interaction in Basic
Regressions
Results from the decomposition model dem-
onstrate that the interaction of segregation
and group poverty rates does occur when a
series of other spatial and demographic con-
ditions are held constant. Why, then, is there
no interaction of segregation and group pov-
erty rates in the basic regressions, such as
those used by Jargowsky (1997) and Massey
and Fischer (2000)? The answer to this ques-
tion must have to do with components that are
not held constant in the decomposition model.
Confirming Past Results
Before considering in more detail why past
studies using regression have not found an inter-
action between segregation and group poverty
rates, I first confirm that the interaction fails to
hold using 2000 Census data and the exact mea-
sures in the decomposition model.
Table 4 shows basic regressions of group
poverty concentration on segregation, group
poverty rates,12 and their interaction. Following
a specification used by Jargowsky (1997) and
Massey and Fischer (2000), the models repre-
sent segregation with dummy variables for
categories of medium and high segregation
(with low as the reference category).13 Other
controls include the share of a metropolitan area
that is a member of the minority group and seg-
regation of poor from nonpoor. The left numeric
column shows results using the index of dis-
similarity to measure segregation. The right
numeric column uses the variance ratio index.
Results using both measures are highly
consistent. Neither case shows support for an
interaction between segregation and the group
poverty rate in predicting a group’s poverty
contact. Only one interaction of segregation
levels and group poverty rates is statistically
significant: the medium segregation category
based on the variance ratio index in the His-
panic model. This means that of eight interac-
tion coefficients across the two models, only
one is statistically significant and in the direc-
tion predicted by Massey’s theory.
In short, results of this analysis are similar
to those found by others with earlier years of
data and similar models. Correlation between
main effects and interactions may cause some
inflation of the model’s standard errors, but
the use of dummy variable categories and
pooling across race groups to increase varia-
tion in segregation still produces no signifi-
cant effects. As the group poverty rate
increases, minority poor’s contact with poor
increases, but in simple regression it does so
at a rate that is no faster in cities with rela-
tively low levels of segregation than in cities
with high or medium levels of segregation.
The Missing Segregation and Poverty
Concentration Interaction
Basic regressions do not show an interaction
because other conditions specified in the
decomposition are not held constant. These
other spatial conditions are correlated with
group poverty rates and segregation in a way
that counteracts the interactive intensification
that Massey expects.
In regression, the standard approach to
holding additional factors constant is to add
Quillian 371

Table 4. Coefficients of OLS Regressions of Metropolitan Group-Poor Contact with Poor

(gpP*g) on Segregation, the Group Poverty Rate, and Interaction

(1) Dissimilarity (2) Variance

Variables Index Ratio Index
Black (N = 166 metropolitan areas)
Race Segregation Medium (vs. Low) .002 .040*
  (.019) (.016)
Race Segregation High (vs. Low) −.010 .027
  (.020) (.017)
Black Poverty Rate .581*** .516***
  (.048) (.041)
Black Poverty Rate x Seg. Medium .046 −.081
  (.075) (.064)
Black Poverty Rate x Seg. High .112 .032
  (.074) (.064)
Seg. Poor/Not Poor .343*** .665***
  (.034) (.050)
Percentage Black .057** −.019
  (.018) (.016)
Constant −.023 .054***
  (.017) (.010)

Hispanic (N = 144 metropolitan areas)

Race Segregation Medium (vs. Low) −.034* −.028
  (.017) (.021)
Race Segregation High (vs. Low) −.014 −.013
  (.017) (.023)
Hispanic Poverty Rate .633*** .593***
  (.063) (.075)
Hispanic Poverty Rate x Seg. Medium .138 .209*
  (.080) (.095)
Hispanic Poverty Rate x Seg. High .046 .139
  (.078) (.097)
Seg. Poor/Not Poor .430*** .447***
  (.036) (.079)
Percentage Hispanic .153*** .087***
  (.012) (.015)
Constant −.096*** .034*
  (.018) (.016)

Note: Standard errors are in parentheses.

*p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001 (two-tailed tests).

these factors to the model as control varia-
bles. The problem with this approach in this
case is that it requires that the relationship
between controls and the outcome be linear,
or be represented through linear transforma-
tions. But as Equation 5 makes clear, the
relationship between the independent factors
and concentrated poverty is complexly non-
linear. Simply controlling for these terms in a
linear model would not correctly specify their
effect in producing concentrated poverty.
Moreover, the combination of additive and
multiplicative terms in Equation 5 cannot be
easily linearized in the components. Taking
logs, for instance, does not produce a more
linear form.
Instead, I use a two-step procedure to
determine which components are suppressing
the interaction. First, I use the decomposition
model (Equation 5) to create six sets of
372 American Sociological Review 77(3)

Table 5. Coefficients of Interactions from OLS Regressions of Decomposition-Predicted

Group Poverty Concentration on Group Poverty Rate and Segregation, Holding Indicated
Component at the Mean of Decomposition Prediction

Component Held at Mean in Decomposition

(1) (2) (5)

None % Not Nongroup (7)
(same as Group (3) (4) Pov. Rate (6) GPx
Variable Table 4) (png) GPxG GPxGP (Povng) GxNGP NGP
Black (N = 166)
Black Pov. −.081 −.084 −.041 .058 .003 −.037 −.113
Rate x Seg. (.064) (.067) (.061) (.056) (.096) (.095) (.066)
Medium
Black Pov. .032 −.011 .091 .294*** .210* .014 −.016
Rate x Seg. (.064) (.067) (.061) (.056) (.095) (.095) (.066)
High

Hispanic (N = 144)
Hispanic .209* .296** .209* .239** .046 .294* .126
Pov. Rate (.095) (.101) (.089) (.089) (.131) (.118) (.081)
x Seg.
Medium
Hispanic .139 .170 .153 .208* .153 .268* .095
Pov. Rate x (.097) (.103) (.092) (.091) (.134) (.120) (.082)
Seg. High

Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. Bold coefficients are appreciably larger than coefficients
in Model 1. The following variables are included in the regression but not shown: dummy variables
(main effects) for race segregation medium, race segregation high, main effect for group poverty rate,
segregation poor/nonpoor measure, and percentage group.
*p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001 (two-tailed tests).

metropolitan-by-race group predictions of the
level of concentrated poverty. These predic-
tions are made holding the six components at
their means one at a time, with all other com-
ponents left at their original values. In the
second step, I estimate six regressions with
the decomposition predictions of concen-
trated poverty as the dependent variables and
the independent variables from Table 4. From
the interaction slopes in these six regressions,
we can investigate which of the components
of the decomposition suppress the interaction
in a basic regression model.
Table 5 shows coefficients of the interac-
tions of segregation and poverty concentra-
tion from these regressions. These regressions
include main effects of segregation and the
group poverty rate and controls for class seg-
regation and percentage group, but the table
does not show these coefficients (model spec-
ification is identical to column 2 of Table 4).
I estimated results separately for black and
Hispanic segregation.
The top panel of Table 5 shows results for
black segregation. Holding constant own-
group poverty disproportionality (GPxGP) or
the non-black poverty rate results in a statisti-
cally significant interaction term in the direc-
tion Massey suggests. The bottom panel of
Table 5 shows results for Hispanic segregation.
Two components produce statistically signifi-
cant interaction terms: own-group poverty
disproportionality (GPxGP) and dispro-
portionality in other-race (nongroup) neigh-
bors’ poverty status (GxNGP).
Because the decomposition model shows
many interactive effects among components,
the combination of several changes together
may be substantially different than the single-
component changes shown in Table 5. To
examine how multiple changes affect the segre-
gation by poverty-rate interaction, I computed
Quillian 373

Table 6. Coefficients of Regressions of Group Poor’s Predicted Contact with Poor from
Decomposition, Holding Multiple Components at Means

Outcome Is Predicted Group Poverty Concentration with Indicated

Components Held at Mean in Decomposition

  Black Hispanic

(1) GPxGP (2) GPxGP (3) Povng (4) GPxGP and

and and Povng and Povng and
Variable Povng and GxNGP GxNGP GxNGP
Race Seg. Med. (vs. Low) .008 −.037** −.025 −.035*
  (.022) (.013) (.017) (.017)
Race Seg. High (vs. Low) −.051* −.091*** −.057** −.077***
  (.024) (.014) (.019) (.018)
Group Poverty Rate .345*** .286*** .211** .305***
  (.056) (.032) (.061) (.060)

Group Pov. x Seg. Med. .141 .232*** .123 .154*

  (.088) (.050) (.078) (.077)
Group Pov. x Seg. High .472*** .528*** .286*** .355***
  (.088) (.050) (.080) (.079)

Seg. Poor/Not Poor .338*** .227*** .354*** .321***

  (.069) (.040) (.065) (.064)
% Group .027 .123*** .125*** .208***
  (.021) (.012) (.012) (.012)
N (metros) 166 166 144 144

Note: Table shows predicted poverty concentration with the two and three components at mean that
had the largest effects on interactions. Standard errors are in parentheses. Constant term is included but
not shown.
*p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001 (two-tailed tests).

predictions from the decomposition model
involving changing two and three components
to the mean simultaneously, for all possible
combinations of two and three components.14 I
then estimated regressions in which the pre-
dicted poverty concentration scores were
regressed on the basic regression model.
For each group, Table 6 shows the models
with two and three components simultane-
ously at means that had the largest impact on
the interactions between segregation and the
group poverty rate.15 Coefficients of the main
effect terms and control variables are also
displayed. Components that were the strong-
est individually produce the largest changes
in combination. When two or three key com-
ponents are set to means, the interaction
emerges strongly, as the Massey model pre-
dicts. This is shown for black and Hispanic
segregation in Models 1 through 4. The fac-
tors that suppress the interaction are moder-
ately consistent across groups.
The most consistently important factor is
the level of disproportionality in poverty-status
contact among own-group members (GPxGP).
For blacks, there is a strong negative relation-
ship between this component and the group
poverty rate: the correlation of GPxGP and
metropolitan poverty rates is –.7. The same
pattern holds for Hispanics, but more weakly:
the correlation of GPxGP and the group pov-
erty rate is –.5.16 This implies that when there
is a low percentage of a group that is poor in a
metropolitan area, group poor are more likely
to be residentially isolated from more middle-
class members of their own group. Massey’s
model predicts that as a group’s poverty rate
increases, the concentration of poverty will
374 American Sociological Review 77(3)
increase more sharply in more segregated
environments. Empirically however, higher
poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are
associated with less spatial separation of group
poor from the group nonpoor, which reduces
the concentration of group poverty and par-
tially offsets Massey’s expected interaction.
That poor and nonpoor group members are
less segregated from each other when group
poverty rates are high is an unexpected but
consistent fact in the data. When group pov-
erty rates are low, it appears that nonpoor
blacks can better separate themselves from
poor blacks; the same pattern holds but is less
pronounced for Hispanics. The Washington,
DC and Atlanta metropolitan areas, for
instance, have relatively low black poverty
rates overall and high spatial differentiation,
marked by distinct middle-class and poor
black neighborhoods. By contrast, in cities
with high-poverty black populations, like
many smaller metropolitan areas in the South,
poor and nonpoor blacks are more spatially
mixed. The reasons for this pattern are beyond
the scope of this analysis and are a good topic
for future research (for a related analysis, see
Bayer, Fang, and MacMillan 2011).
As black poverty rates increase, it is non-
poor blacks who, on average, have especially
large increases in their poverty contact,
because their degree of spatial separation
from poor blacks tends to decrease. The com-
bination of high segregation and high black
poverty rates produces an interactive intensi-
fication in poverty contact for nonpoor blacks
rather than for poor blacks.17
A second factor that suppresses the inter-
action of segregation and poverty rates for
blacks and Hispanics is the other-race poverty
rate (Povng), that is, the poverty rate among
persons not in the focal race group. The other-
race poverty rate is correlated with the group
poverty rate because both group and other-
race poverty rates tend to fluctuate together
with business cycles and local labor market
conditions. This correlation makes segrega-
tion less important, because a reduction in the
level of segregation results in poor group
members having fewer poor own-group
neighbors but more poor other-group neigh-
bors, with little change in the level of neigh-
borhood poverty contact.
A third factor that suppresses the interac-
tion is poverty disproportionality in other-race
contact (GxNGP). This is a measure of the
extent to which group members’ other-race
neighbors are poorer than the other-race aver-
age. Suppression of the interaction from this
factor occurs for much the same reason as for
the other-race poverty rate. In metropolitan
areas with high group poverty rates, group
members’ other-race neighbors are more often
poor than in metropolitan areas with low
group poverty rates. This weakens segregation
effects on concentrated poverty, because
changes in segregation result in less contact
with poor group members but more contact
with nonpoor group members. This process is
especially important for Hispanics, who on
average have many non-Hispanic neighbors.
The processes that suppress Massey’s
expected interaction vary by group. For
blacks, it is predominately that poor and non-
poor blacks are more spatially mixed in cities
with high black poverty rates. For Hispanics,
it is predominately that as segregation declines,
Hispanics often swap poor Hispanic neighbors
for poor non-Hispanic neighbors, thus weak-
ening the intensification from the combination
of segregation and high poverty rates Massey
expected. The result is that Massey’s expected
intensification of spatially concentrated pov-
erty from the combination of high segregation
and high poverty rates fails to appear because
it is offset by these other conditions. The
intensification is evident if these other condi-
tions are held constant by the decomposition
model. Massey’s basic logic of how segrega-
tion and high minority poverty rates should
interact is correct, but other conditions associ-
ated with high segregation or group poverty in
metropolitan areas offset some of the increase
in poverty concentration.
Discussion
The failure of past studies to establish an
interaction of segregation and poverty con-
Quillian 375
centration has been puzzling. The theoretical
account developed by Massey and Denton
(1993) and elaborated through simple simula-
tions by Massey (1990) is compelling. Yet
this account was called into question by the
failure of other studies to find the proposed
interaction of group poverty rates and segre-
gation in data (Jargowsky 1997; Massey and
Fischer 2000). It seemed the very idea that
segregation and high minority group poverty
rates play an important role in concentrating
poverty was wrong, or the process was not
empirically important, or there was some fun-
damental but unexplained problem in empiri-
cal tests employed in past work. If the results
indicated a conceptual problem in Massey’s
model, this would undermine a major ratio-
nale offered by Massey and Denton and other
scholars as to why racial segregation is a
significant social problem, as well as under-
cut a key argument of American Apartheid.
This analysis demonstrates that this inter-
action was not found in past work because
Massey’s substantive model of how segrega-
tion concentrated poverty, while correct in its
broad logic of how segregation and group
poverty disparities should combine interac-
tively, was incomplete and, at points, too
simple. The decomposition model developed
here expands Massey’s model to include
additional conditions and allow for a more
accurate description of the complicated way
demographic and spatial conditions of race
and poverty status combine.
Massey’s theory hypothesizes that concen-
trated poverty in minority communities
results from two segregations: segregation of
non-white poor from members of other lower-
poverty racial groups (racial segregation with
racial inequality) and from nonpoor of their
own racial group (poverty-status segregation
within race). This is a compelling picture, and
it represents an important pair of conditions
that contribute to the formation of concen-
trated poverty in non-white neighborhoods.
Yet the results indicate that we must add a
third spatial pattern to understand poverty
concentration for blacks and Hispanics: pov-
erty disproportionality in cross-race contact.
Blacks’ and Hispanics’ other-race neighbors
are about 50 percent more likely to be poor
than the other-race average, with little addi-
tional effect of the poverty status of the black
or Hispanic person. In effect, blacks and His-
panics are segregated from higher-income
members of other racial groups. It is thus more
accurate to describe concentrated poverty in
minority communities as resulting from three
segregations: racial segregation, poverty-sta-
tus segregation within race, and segregation
from high- and middle-income members of
other racial groups. Disproportionate contact
with poor members of other groups is espe-
cially important for Hispanics, owing to their
relatively low racial segregation. For Hispan-
ics, other-race neighbors’ disproportionate
poverty has more impact on high Hispanic
levels of neighborhood poverty concentration
than does segregation. Massey’s model is
incomplete in omitting this process.
Massey’s model was too simple because he
assumed that only the group poverty rate
interacted with, or intensified the effect of,
segregation. He took other important condi-
tions, such as within-group poverty-status seg-
regation, as having separable, linear effects on
poverty concentration (other scholars testing
his framework implicitly adopted this view as
well). The decomposition model shows that
several other conditions interact with segrega-
tion in producing concentrated poverty. The
effects of racial segregation on poverty con-
centration are thus the product of a complex
set of other spatial and demographic condi-
tions that may strengthen or weaken them,
including within-group poverty-status segre-
gation, blacks’ and Hispanics’ tendency to be
in contact with especially poor other-race
members, and relative group size.
Massey expected metropolitan areas with
high group poverty rates and high group seg-
regation to have multiplicatively higher rates
of concentrated poverty for the segregated
minority group. Without controls, they do not
have multiplicatively higher rates because
other conditions change with segregation and
group poverty rates and somewhat offset or
suppress intensified poverty concentration
376 American Sociological Review 77(3)
from the combination of segregation and high
group poverty rates. When these other condi-
tions are held constant statistically, we can
locate Massey’s expected interaction in data.
In the case of black segregation, the inter-
action of segregation and the metropolitan
black poverty rate is suppressed primarily
because segregation based on poverty status
(income segregation) among blacks is lower
in cities with high black poverty rates. For
this reason, rather than the black poor, it is
working- and middle-class blacks who absorb
the increase in poverty contact and experi-
ence the main increase in neighborhood pov-
erty contact in segregated cities with high
black poverty rates. This is consistent with
literature emphasizing how middle-class
blacks’ high contact with poor blacks contrib-
utes to their fragile economic position (Pat-
tillo-McCoy 1999).
In the case of Hispanic segregation, Mas-
sey’s analysis was undone by failing to account
for the important role of poor neighbors from
other racial and ethnic groups. In less segre-
gated environments, poor Hispanics tend to
have fewer poor Hispanic neighbors but more
poor non-Hispanic neighbors. Because of this,
reduced segregation for Hispanics has a weaker
effect in reducing poverty contact than one
would expect from the Massey model.
In their debates about the relative role of
race and class factors in concentrating pov-
erty, Massey’s and Wilson’s perspectives
hypothesize opposite relations between racial
segregation and poverty concentration. Mas-
sey’s theory posited that segregation increased
poverty concentration and desegregation
would decrease it. Wilson’s theory hypothe-
sized that racial desegregation increased pov-
erty concentration because desegregation was
accomplished primarily by more affluent
members of disadvantaged groups moving
into white neighborhoods.
The results here provide more support for
Massey’s view of the effects of segregation
on poverty concentration: overall, racial seg-
regation in U.S. cities is a key lynchpin of
highly concentrated poverty. The decomposition
model indicates that if blacks and Hispanics
had lower segregation levels, holding other
conditions constant, the concentration of pov-
erty for these groups would decline notably.
Yet the results also provide some support for
the idea that income effects in cross-race con-
tact matter, although not primarily the black
income effect on cross-race contact that Wil-
son suggested. Instead, blacks’ and Hispanics’
other-race neighbors’ relatively high poverty
rates are an important factor contributing to
poverty concentration.
The high poverty rates of other-race neigh-
bors help to explain the puzzle of Hispanics’
high neighborhood poverty concentration.
Hispanics experience neighborhood poverty
concentration that is only a bit below the lev-
els of African Americans. This is impossible
to explain via the Massey model, with its
focus on racial segregation, because Hispan-
ics have a poverty rate similar to blacks but a
significantly lower level of segregation. Yet
because Hispanics’ other-race neighbors are
often impoverished, their lower segregation
only weakly translates into lower neighbor-
hood poverty contact.
Decreasing racial segregation through
efforts like aggressive enforcement of anti-
discrimination policies in housing would sig-
nificantly reduce poverty concentration, but
we need to attend to the possibilities of
income-selective effects in desegregation.
Income selectivity can undercut the potential
of desegregation to reduce poverty concentra-
tion. Policies that aim to provide broader
housing choices may not deconcentrate pov-
erty if blacks and Hispanics can only find
places in the most disadvantaged desegre-
gated neighborhoods.
Appendix
Measures Used in the Formal Model
A group’s poverty concentration is assessed
as the share poor in the tract of a poor mem-
ber of the group in question. This can be cal-
culated for the metropolitan level from
Quillian 377
tract-level data with the following formula
(see Lieberson and Carter 1982):
 gpi   pi 
gp P * p =Si  
GP   ti 
Where gpi denotes the number of poor per-
sons in race group g in the ith tract, pi is the
number of poor persons of any race in the ith
census tract, GP is the total number of poor in
the group in the metropolitan area for which
the index is calculated, and ti is the total
population of the ith neighborhood tract. This
measure can be interpreted as the average
percentage of the population poor in the
neighborhood of the average poor member of
racial group g. While the literature refers to
this as a measure of “contact,” this is short-
hand for coresidence in the same census tract;
there is no direct measure of contact in per-
sonal interactions.
Measures of segregation, by contrast,
measure the relative evenness of two groups’
distributions over census tracts (Massey and
Denton 1988). The variance ratio index of
segregation between group g and persons not
in group g (ng) can be calculated from tract
data for a metropolitan area as follows (see
James and Taeuber 1985):
2
g  yielding a total of 15 sets of regression coefficients.
ti  i − π 
 ti 
V( g )( ng ) =∑
i T π(1 − π)
Where gi denotes the population of the racial
group in the ith tract, ti is the total number of
persons in the ith tract, T is the total popula-
tion of the metropolitan area for which the
measure is calculated, and π is the group pro-
portion of the population in the metropolitan
area.
Funding
The author acknowledges financial support for this
research from National Institute of Health award #
3001663503/R21 CA154269.
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the
2009 meetings of the American Sociological Association
in San Francisco and the 2008 meetings of the Interna-
tional Sociological Association Research Committee 28 in
Palo Alto, California. I received helpful comments on ear-
lier versions from the University of Chicago Demography
Workshop; the California Center for Population Research;
the Ohio State University Population Research Institute;
the University of California at Davis Program in Econ-
omy, Society, and Justice; the University of Michigan
Department of Sociology; and the ASR reviewers.
Notes
  1. Author’s calculations from 2000 Census and Orfield
and Lee (2005). Poor neighborhoods are defined as
having a poverty rate above 20 percent. High-poverty
schools are defined as 50 percent or more of students
are eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch (see
Logan [2011] for an excellent discussion).
  2. For simplicity, I refer to whites, blacks, and Hispanics
as “race groups,” even though Hispanics are often
described as an ethnic rather than a racial category.
  3. Rather than entering a continuous segregation measure,
to reduce multicollinearity, Jargowsky divides segrega-
tion into three categories—high, medium, and low—and
interacts dummy variables for these categories with the
measures of metropolitan poverty and income levels.
 4. Massey and Fischer assign segregation between
whites and whites to have zero segregation.
  5. In Massey and Fischer’s (2000:673) revised concep-
tion, segregation interacts with any “structural shifts
that influence the level and distribution of income.”
  6. Massey and Fischer estimate cross-sectional models for
three points in time (1970, 1980, and 1990) and two sets
of change regressions (1970–1980 and 1980–1990),
  7. Massey and Fischer do not present formal tests of the
difference in slope coefficients across models esti-
mated for different levels of segregation.
  8. The variance ratio index has a long history of use; see
James and Taeuber (1985, note 3) and Reardon and
Firebaugh (2002).
  9. I drew census data from the Census CD census tract data
extract produced by GeoLytics (2003). Because the
Census long form is no longer used, comparable data on
poverty-by-race for tracts is not available for 2010. Sam-
pling error in tract-level group poverty estimates in
American Community Survey data make it a poor sub-
stitute for the 2000 Census at the date of this writing.
10. An alternative possibility is to calculate segregation
between whites and each minority group rather than
minority versus nonminority. Group versus nongroup
segregation corresponds more closely to Massey’s
conceptual model than does group versus white,
because the group poverty rate should interact with
378 American Sociological Review 77(3)
segregation from all other groups, not just segregation
from whites.
11. Results setting disproportionality measures to 1 and
segregation to Asian levels (the racial group with the
lowest segregation level), rather than one standard
deviation changes, produced similar conclusions
regarding the relative importance of different factors
(results not shown here).
12. I use group poverty rates to interact with segregation
following Jargowsky (1997) and Massey and Eggers
(1990), rather than Massey and Fischer’s (2000)
revised conception that multiple measures of income
should interact with segregation. Following Massey’s
(1990) simulations, the theoretical expectation of
interaction is by far strongest for group poverty rates
in predicting neighborhood poverty contact. Other
measures of group income level might also interact
with segregation in producing concentrated poverty
rates, but the most compelling reason they should do
so is because they are associated with higher group
poverty rates.
13. I created the categories by dividing the segregation
measure at the 33rd and 66th percentile for each group.
14. I also examined setting four or more components to
the mean, but this did not provide much additional
change in interactions beyond the models that set
three components to means.
15. From all two- and three-component changes, Table 6
shows the models with the largest sum of interaction
terms between group poverty rate and the medium
and high segregation categories.
16. These negative correlations hold about as strongly
using other measures of relative contact or segrega-
tion between group poor and nonpoor, such as the
index of dissimilarity computed between group poor
and nonpoor. This correlation does not reflect some
particularity of GPxGP as a measure of own-group
poverty contact.
17. Correspondingly, regression of nonpoor black contact
with poor (gnpP*p) on segregation, group poverty
rates, interactions, and basic controls shows the inter-
action Massey expected. A table of this regression is
available from the author on request.
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Lincoln Quillian is Professor of Sociology and Faculty
Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwest-
ern University. He is a social demographer with interests
in social stratification, race and ethnicity, urban sociol-
ogy, and quantitative research methods. His current work
focuses on the causes and consequences of racial and eco-
nomic segregation in metropolitan areas.