UCLA

In recent decades, U.S. suburbs have experienced an increase in racial diversity. At the same time, suburbs have experienced racial segregation and, in some areas, economic distress. Of course, suburban landscapes differ from urban ones, particularly with respect to the dispersion of land uses and activities, which shapes people’s ability to move through space and reach destinations. It is therefore important to consider whether the movement of people of color to increasingly segregated suburbs has introduced additional or different dimensions of racialized disparities in physical mobility, and thus limited access to opportunities and resources. Toward this end, this dissertation uses a mixed-methods approach to explore the following research questions: How does mobility affect racial-spatial isolation in suburbs (compared to urban areas)? How does the relationship between mobility and racial-spatial isolation operate in suburbs—and how does this relationship shape the mobility experiences and economic outcomes of low-income suburbanites of color? My quantitative analysis draws on spatial data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey California Add-on sample and the 2019 5-year American Community Survey. My qualitative analysis draws on data from in-depth interviews and cognitive mapping exercises with 30 low-income people of color in Southern California’s largely suburban Inland Empire. Findings show that in suburbs, living in a fully-equipped household (in which there is at least one car per adult) increases white isolation in working-age adults’ activity spaces. Conversely, living in a car-deficit household (in which there are fewer cars than adults) increases Latino isolation in activity spaces. In the context of the “peripheralization” of segregation, these findings suggest that being highly mobile contributes to processes of racial exclusion, which maintains white suburban space, and being mobility constrained contributes to processes of racial-suburban containment. Working-age adults of color in suburbs indeed have higher levels of car access than those in urban areas, but their car access can be extremely unstable, which leads to a multitude of mobility constraints in their day-to-day lives. While housing opportunities and familial connections draw people of color to suburbs and restrictions on residential location drives racial segregation, mobility constraints cement racial-suburban isolation. Such isolation is particularly dire for those living in suburbs, compared to those in urban areas, as such geographies are extremely difficult to traverse without a car—hindering access to opportunities, principally employment in nearby better-resourced suburbs.