NSF Award
1739662
This research project will investigate whether and how a model of population dynamics termed "demographic inversion" characterizes large metropolitan areas in the United States. This model suggests that affluent, educated populations are increasingly populating urban cores, while more socioeconomically diverse groups populate the suburbs. The project will provide new information and insights regarding how demographic characteristics like age, race, income, and education relate to residential location within cities and suburbs, and it will enhance understanding about how these relationships vary over time and across different types of metropolitan areas. By generating new insights on the current dynamics of demographic change within U.S. cities and suburbs, project results will benefit business owners, government officials, and researchers who require up-to-date information about the characteristics of their communities. Project results and materials will be publicly shared in several ways, including interactive maps and data visualizations, tutorials for practitioners to help analyze and interpret U.S. census data, and public workshops on data analysis and mapping. The project also will provide advanced education and training opportunities in data science for undergraduate students.<br/><br/>An understanding of contemporary trends in urban and suburban demographic change is essential for professionals in both the private and public sectors. Information about these shifts often is limited by the coarse resolution of public demographic resources. The investigator will develop models of neighborhood-level demographic shifts and metropolitan migration patterns using confidential census microdata available at a federal statistical research data center. He will conduct highly precise analyses of the contemporary demographic structure of American cities in order to assess how processes of demographic inversion are consistent with or challenge theories of urban demographic structure. The results of these analyses will be cross-referenced with analyses using public census data, thereby providing new methodological insights into the accuracy of public data for the study of metropolitan demographic change. By developing reproducible software and visualization tools for working with census and other demographic data in this project, the investigator will help businesses, policymakers, and communities understand the ways in which contemporary metropolitan demographics are changing and equip them with new approaches for integrating demographic data into their own inquiries.
