The Limits of Mobility and the Persistence of Urban Inequality

Authors

Sheila Foster, Georgetown University Law CenterFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-30-2017

Abstract

David Schleicher's Article, Stuck! The Law and Economics of Residential Stagnation, draws much-needed attention to the consequences of declining interregional mobility of low-income workers. However, this Response argues that Schleicher's policy prescriptions evince a blind spot for the economic and racial stratification of disadvantaged populations within the successful metro regions these new migrants would enter. The concentration of highly skilled, educated, and affluent populations in the urban core, and the segregation and isolation of disadvantaged populations outside of it, impose additional costs on new migrants to access economic opportunities. Schleicher fails to sufficiently account for these costs, which offset the potential wage gains from mobility. Moreover, his focus on a few select “hot” metro areas ignores the resurgence of other cities that can, with the right policy interventions, expand economic opportunities for disadvantaged populations. If the federal government is to play a renewed role in redistributing economic opportunity, as Schleicher proposes, then it should do so by helping to bridge the spatial gap between that opportunity and disadvantaged populations both within and outside cities and metro regions.

Publication Citation

Yale Law Journal Forum, Vol. 127, pp. 480-497.

Scholarly Commons Citation

Foster, Sheila, "The Limits of Mobility and the Persistence of Urban Inequality" (2017). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 2610.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/2610