Changing occupational structures and residential segregation in New York, London and Tokyo
Abstract
Based on data from the 1980s, Sassen’s influential book ‘The Global City’ interrogated how changes in the occupational structure affect socio-economic residential segregation in global cities. Here, using data for New York City, London and Tokyo, we reframe and answer this question for recent decades. Our analysis shows an increase in the share of high-income occupations, accompanied by a fall in low-income occupations in all three cities, providing strong evidence for a consistent trend of professionalization of the workforce. Segregation was highest in New York and lowest in Tokyo. In New York and London, individuals in high-income occupations are concentrating in the city centre, while low-income occupations are pushed to urban peripheries. Professionalization of the workforce is accompanied by reduced levels of segregation by income, and two ongoing megatrends in urban change: gentrification of inner-city neighbourhoods and suburbanization of poverty, with larger changes in the social geography than in levels of segregation.
Citation
van Ham , M , Uesugi , M , Tammaru , T , Manley , D & Janssen , H 2020 , ' Changing occupational structures and residential segregation in New York, London and Tokyo ' , Nature Human Behaviour . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0927-5
Publication
Nature Human Behaviour
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2397-3374Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2020. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0927-5
Description
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects), from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant Number JP17K13584, from the Estonian Research Council (PUT PRG306, Infotechnological Mobility Laboratory, RITA-Ränne), and from TU Delft (visiting professorship of Tiit Tammaru).Collections
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