Gerrymand ndering of C City B Borders Noah J. Durst School of - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Gerrymand ndering of C City B Borders

Noah J. Durst School of Planning, Design and Construction Michigan State University

MUNICIPAL ANNEXATION AND THE

The Gerrymanderi ring o

• f City Borders

Annexation from 2011 to 2018

Selective ve A Annexation (Muni nicipa pal Underbo boun undi ding)

• Variation in state/federal law matters
• When laws give city residents control over annexation, black

neighborhoods are less likely to be annexed.

• When laws give independent boundary commissions or

residents on the fringe control over annexation, black neighborhoods are more likely to be annexed (Durst, 2018)

• The invalidation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act led to

decreases in the annexation of black neighborhoods (Durst, 2019) EMPIRICAL/METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES/CHALLENGES: CAPITALIZING ON INTER-CITY VARIATION CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION

What factors influence cities’ decision to annex (underbound) specific areas? Method: regression analysis Logistic: OLS: Y = Annexed/ Y = race, ethnicity, property not annexed (1/0) $ in annexed neighborhoods X = Physical/economic conditions Demographics State and federal laws Durst (2014, 2018, 2019); Lichter et al. (2007); Wilson and Edwards (2014)

Selective ve A Annexation (Muni nicipa pal Underbo boun undi ding)

• The physical, economic, and demographic characteristics of areas

“at risk” of annexation vary greatly from city to city.

• Failing to control for this leads to biased estimates of the factors

that drive municipal underbounding (Durst, 2018)

• When inter-city variation is not used as a predictor:
• City fixed effects (Durst, 2019)
• When inter-city variation is used as a predictor
• Spatial first-difference estimators ((Durst, 2018)
• Multi-level mixed effects models

EMPIRICAL/METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES/CHALLENGES: CONTROLLING FOR INTER-CITY VARIATION

Selective ve A Annexation (Muni nicipa pal Underbo boun undi ding)

EMPIRICAL/METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES/CHALLENGES: THE MODIFIABLE AREAL UNIT PROBLEM CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION Lichter et al. (2007)

Selective ve A Annexation (Muni nicipa pal Underbo boun undi ding)

EMPIRICAL/METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES/CHALLENGES: MEASURING DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANNEXATIONS CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION

What factors influence cities’ decision to annex (underbound) specific areas? Method: regression analysis Logistic: Y = Annexed/not annexed (1/0) OLS: Y = race, ethnicity, property $, etc in annexed neighborhoods X = Physical/economic conditions Demographics State and federal laws Durst (2014, 2018, 2019); Lichter et al. (2007); Wilson and Edwards (2014) 1 Nationwide & Multi-year City Boundary Data (IPUMS) 2 Geographic Identification of Annexation Variety Additional data collection

• Demography
• Socio-Economic Data

3 4 Modeling: Multilevel multinomial logit