Neighborhood Tipping and Racial Transition: A Review of Social Science Evidence

Abstract

The focus of this article is the question of whether there is any social science evidence that demonstrates the existence of a racial tipping point. Do neighborhoods tip, for example, when they become 30 percent nonwhite? There is some evidence that neighborhoods undergo a relatively continuous process of change in which racial proportions are only one element in determining population turnover. Though tipping points may well exist in certain areas and under particular conditions, neighborhoods are too variable historically, demographically, and socially to be able to formulate on an a priori basis an iron law of demographic transition.