You are where you live? Evaluating the racial and ethnic (mis) representation in geodemographic classification
Geodemographic classification, a process of categorizing neighborhoods into distinct groups based on their demographic, social, and economic characteristics to create summary profiles, has significantly expanded its applications over the last forty years, from its origins in urban sociology to fields such as health, transportation, and public policy. However, a fundamental issue associated with this classification is that decisions made based on neighborhood profiles are essentially applied not only to the geographic areas but to all residents, which risks marginalizing individuals and households whose characteristics deviate from the established profiles, leading to inequitable treatment in decision-making. This study evaluates whether neighborhood profiles resulting from geodemographic classification serve as fair representations of diverse racial and ethnic subgroups within these neighborhoods. The findings demonstrate that geodemographic classification often yields disparate representations for different racial and ethnic groups in different areas. Individuals and households that are not in the predominant racial and ethnic subgroups within a particular neighborhood consistently experience underrepresentation across a range of demographic, social, and economic domains. This highlights the need for a paradigm shift in neighborhood studies and a people-focused, individual-based approach to the dynamics of neighborhoods.
@article{lin2024you,
title={You are where you live? Evaluating the racial and ethnic (mis) representation in geodemographic classification},
author={Lin, Yue},
journal={Applied Geography},
volume={165},
pages={103244},
year={2024},
publisher={Elsevier}
}