Data and Racial Inequality Project

Everyday Mobility and Segregation

This study seeks new ways of understanding racial segregation. Rather focusing on where people live, it examines where they move about the city. Using data on people’s daily travel to establishments and neighborhoods across cities, it examines separation, isolation, and integration.

Related publications:

• The nature of racial segregation in everyday urban mobility (2021)

• The Social Integration of American Cities: Network Measures (2019)

• Urban mobility and neighborhood isolation in America’s 50 largest cities (2018)

Racial Inequality and Financial Access

This study, in collaboration with Bremen University, examines the nature, precursors, and consequences of racial differences in access to financial services. It uses qualitative and quantitative data to examine how states, neighborhoods, networks, and technology affect people’s ability to avoid debt and improve their economic well-being. In doing so, it probes the relationship between qualitative methods and large-scale data analysis.

Related publications:

• The data revolution in social science needs qualitative research (2022)

• Banks, alternative institutions and the spatial–temporal ecology of racial inequality in US cities (2021)

Local Entrepreneurship and Racial Inequality

This study examines the two-way relationship between local entrepreneurship and neighborhood conditions. It assesses whether organizational conditions help stimulate entrepreneurship in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and whether such entrepreneurship, in turn, produces local jobs, neighborhood investment, and greater economic opportunity.