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Economic Heterogeneity Within Large Metropolitan Areas
Author(s) -
GETIS ARTHUR
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
growth and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.657
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1468-2257
pISSN - 0017-4815
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2257.1988.tb00460.x
Subject(s) - metropolitan area , per capita income , distribution (mathematics) , geography , demographic economics , census , per capita , household income , sample (material) , income distribution , socioeconomics , economics , population , demography , inequality , sociology , mathematical analysis , chemistry , mathematics , archaeology , chromatography
Recent research has indicated that individual income distribution in the United States has tended toward greater inequality in recent years. Hypotheses are presented on the expected effect of that trend on suburban municipalities within large metropolitan areas. One major expectation is that the distribution of per capita incomes among the municipalities will be found to bifurcate. A methodology that rests on a graphical depiction of income and a revision of the famous Pearson plane is used to identify trends. Results indicate that the long term trend (at least since 1960) toward income homogeneity came to a halt by 1979 and began to reverse itself in the early 1980s, although bimodal distributions of income are not yet (1983) in evidence. Rapidly growing and rich communities are tending toward greater internal income homogeneity.