Spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity in the effects of immigration on home values and native flight in Louisville, Kentucky

ABSTRACT

This article examines how changes in foreign-born populations are associated with home values and native flight in Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky. In particular, we use spatial autoregressive models (SAR) to explore the spillover effects of foreign-born populations beyond neighborhood boundaries and utilize geographically weighted regression (GWR) to tackle spatial heterogeneity that is complicating the immigrant/neighborhood relationship. Our findings show an insignificant role of immigrant growth in shaping median home values of Louisville, while increasing proportions of immigrants are positively associated with out-migration of non-Hispanic Whites. We also show how those relationships vary across space: the foreign-born population is a salient predictor in White flight in affluent northeastern suburban neighborhoods, compared to middle-class southern suburbs. These findings shed light on heterogeneous local responses within the metropolitan area when confronting immigrant suburbanization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Pseudo-t-statistics are calculated to determine the significance by dividing the local coefficient value for each independent variable for each census tract by its corresponding standard error (Fotheringham et al., 2002).

2. The average direct effect is a partial derivative of the dependent variable with respect to changes in each independent variable in a given unit. The average indirect effect is a partial derivative of the dependent variable with respect to changes in each independent variable in all other units. The AIEs thus capture the spillover effects from changes in the independent variables in the original spatial unit. The average total effect is the sum of ADE and AIE (LeSage & Pace, 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anqi Xu

Anqi Xu is a PhD candidate and Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Urban and Public Affairs at University of Louisville. Her research interests include immigration and migration, residential segregation, housing, race/ethnicity and spatial methodology. Her recent work focuses on immigration processes in non-traditional, small- and mid-sized destinations.

Charlie H. Zhang

Charlie H. Zhang is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography & Geosciences, University of Louisville. He is an urban geographer with research interests in spatial analysis of school segregation, housing, crime, and health geographies. His most recent projects are related to school segregation and demographic changes in U.S. metropolitan areas and prevalence of food swamps on college campuses. His publications have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals including Urban Geography, Air Quality Atmosphere & Health, Applied Geography, Environmental Pollution, Habitat International, and Journal of Maps.

Matt Ruther

Matt Ruther is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Louisville and the Director of the Kentucky State Data Center. He carries out research on small area population estimation, neighborhood growth and change, population forecasting, and spatial methodology, and teaches courses in quantitative methods and geographic information science. His work has been published in several journals, including Demographic Research, Applied Geography, Urban Studies, and Urban Affairs Review. He received his PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania.