Conventional wisdom claims that racial diversity undermines public goods provision. I show that class-based differences, instead, incentivize cooperation for public goods. Class-based segregation reduces spatial externalities of inequality (e.g., sewage pollution and crime) spilling over from impoverished areas (e.g., slums) to the middle class. Conversely, I argue that in integrated (de-segregated) cities, the scale of such externalities undermines the efficacy of private services (e.g., private security), thereby inducing middle-class preferences for externalities-correcting public goods. Thus, while segregation polarizes preferences, integration aligns the middle class with the poor in coalitions that support public goods over private alternatives. I illustrate the theory using focus groups, a proposed quasi-experimental strategy, and an original face-to-face survey of 4,208 households across 420 neighborhoods in São Paulo, Brazil. The analysis introduces self-interest in reducing intergroup externalities as a mechanism for cooperation for public goods even in diverse societies. Using mechanism vignettes, I distinguish the mechanism from the affective attitudes - racial tolerance, social affinity - of intergroup contact.
CITATION STYLE
Xu, A. Z. (2023). Segregation and the Spatial Externalities of Inequality: A Theory of Interdependence and Public Goods in Cities. American Political Science Review. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055423000722
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