Recent intra-metropolitan patterns of spatial mismatch: Implications for black suburbanization and the changing geography of mismatch

Kain's spatial mismatch hypothesis (SMH) (1968) highlights the segregation of Black population in the inner city as well as the decentralization of jobs, both of which played a role in the poor labor market outcomes for Black residents in the inner city. Demographic and economic changes in U.S. metropolitan areas since the late 20th century have transformed the urban spatial structure. This paper aims to revisit the SMH and investigate whether the spatial pattern of mismatch has changed as a result of geographic shifts in the Black population. This paper specifically examines how the suburbanization of the Black population has affected the geographic patterns of mismatch and whether the mismatch is disappearing in the major U.S. metropolitan areas. Using spatial measures of mismatch, this paper presents intra-metropolitan spatial mismatch patterns that capture the clustering of jobs and the Black population based on their relative distributions, showing that the overall level of spatial mismatch declined in major U.S. metropolitan areas between 2000 and 2015. However, geographical evidence reveals that the spatial mismatch has shifted to the outer suburbs, replicating city-suburb spatial inequality, implying that although mismatch may have declined in the inner city due to Black suburbanization, spatial mismatch continue to persist in U.S. metropolitan areas in Black suburbs. The findings also demonstrate that although spatial mismatch generally declined in the inner city, it increased in cities with high inner city polarization, particularly New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle.