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Also: Riblets, Bloomin’ Onions, Chicken Crispers and other crowd-pleasers from affordable chain restaurants such as Olive Garden and Applebee’s. Though sometimes banned by municipalities wanting to "preserve neighborhood character” or slow gentrification, these chains actually provide a hidden social service: They promote much more socioeconomic integration than do independently owned commercial businesses — or, for that matter, traditional public institutions.
That’s according to a provocative new working paper from Maxim Massenkoff of the Naval Postgraduate School and Nathan Wilmers of the MIT Sloan School of Management. The authors analyzed a massive trove of geolocation data to assess where and when Americans come into contact with people of different income classes than themselves — if they do at all.
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In general, the paper finds that those at the very bottom and top of the income distribution are much more socioeconomically isolated than those in the broad middle. That is, the lowest and highest income classes shop, dine, worship and educate their kids at their own distinct, income-segregated establishments.
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This is especially true for upper-income Americans, who really do live in something of a bubble. People who reside in the top quintile of neighborhoods by income are twice as likely to encounter other high-income people in their daily lives as would be expected simply by chance. (The geolocation data were anonymized, so the authors used neighborhood-level income of the tracked individuals as a proxy for income.)
To a small degree, this segregation is because of the kinds of industries that rich vs. poor people patronize. Country clubs don’t attract many low-income visitors (shocker, I know). Likewise, dollar stores rarely pull in customers draped in diamonds and furs.
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But even among the kinds of businesses that both rich and poor people frequent, there is little socioeconomic cross-pollination.
That’s largely because of residential segregation.
Over recent decades, rich and poor households have increasingly sorted into different areas; today, as consumers, they tend not to venture far from home. In the researchers’ data, 80 percent of customers’ visits to stores and other establishments were within 10 miles of home. Lower-income people in particular seem to strongly prefer staying nearby (why is unclear; limited transportation options might play a role, or lack of free time).
To give an example: CVS, the largest pharmacy chain in the country, serves customers across the income distribution. So, in aggregate, the company’s patrons look economically diverse. But there are so many CVS locations that consumers can easily shop only at the branch within their own neighborhoods — where they might encounter only people who look like themselves.
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Similarly, the U.S. Postal Service serves everyone. But when you buy stamps, you probably don’t often venture beyond your nearest post office. So, you end up bumping into even more people who look demographically similar to yourself.
Indeed, many public institutions we might associate with facilitating encounters across class lines instead reinforce seclusion. Parks, schools, libraries, churches, fitness and recreation centers: There are exceptions, but on average, each of these establishments leads to less socioeconomic mixing, more within-income-group hobnobbing and even more class isolation.
Full-service, affordable restaurant chains, however, are a notable outlier.
Everyone, rich and poor, seems to like predictable, mass-produced, moderate-price-point nachos. Locations of these franchises are also not so ubiquitous that each intersection has its own (despite what the Applebee’s “neighborhood” branding might suggest). So loyal customers make the trek — and share their dinners alongside Americans across the income spectrum.
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In an interview, the authors acknowledge that they can’t tell how often, say, Outback Steakhouse customers are actually interacting with one another, vs. sitting back-to-back, isolated in their own vinyl booths. Certainly some of the other sectors that rank highly in the study’s measure of socioeconomic mixing, such as gas stations, seem unlikely to foster new friendships.
But it’s striking nonetheless that Chili’s, and not church or the local playground, is where Americans today are most likely to cross paths with someone of a different income class.
Viewed one way, this is a failure of civil society: Public institutions have been woefully unsuccessful, in some cases counterproductive, in knitting together different socioeconomic strata. Of course, the kinds of policy changes that might encourage more inter-class elbow-rubbing generally face fierce political opposition (busing, for instance, or relaxing zoning rules). Some might also compromise other valuable services public institutions provide. Having more local libraries is good for promoting access, even if closing and consolidating a few could theoretically promote more class mixing.
So perhaps a more cheerful way to interpret these trends is that they represent an unsung achievement of capitalism. The invisible hand has given Americans not only economic growth but social cohesion via curly fries, too.
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These days, Americans seem divided by almost everything.
But you know what has proved successful at bringing Americans of different backgrounds together? Unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks.
Also: Riblets, Bloomin’ Onions, Chicken Crispers and other crowd-pleasers from affordable chain restaurants such as Olive Garden and Applebee’s. Though sometimes banned by municipalities wanting to "preserve neighborhood character” or slow gentrification, these chains actually provide a hidden social service: They promote much more socioeconomic integration than do independently owned commercial businesses — or, for that matter, traditional public institutions.
That’s according to a provocative new working paper from Maxim Massenkoff of the Naval Postgraduate School and Nathan Wilmers of the MIT Sloan School of Management. The authors analyzed a massive trove of geolocation data to assess where and when Americans come into contact with people of different income classes than themselves — if they do at all.
In general, the paper finds that those at the very bottom and top of the income distribution are much more socioeconomically isolated than those in the broad middle. That is, the lowest and highest income classes shop, dine, worship and educate their kids at their own distinct, income-segregated establishments.
This is especially true for upper-income Americans, who really do live in something of a bubble. People who reside in the top quintile of neighborhoods by income are twice as likely to encounter other high-income people in their daily lives as would be expected simply by chance. (The geolocation data were anonymized, so the authors used neighborhood-level income of the tracked individuals as a proxy for income.)
To a small degree, this segregation is because of the kinds of industries that rich vs. poor people patronize. Country clubs don’t attract many low-income visitors (shocker, I know). Likewise, dollar stores rarely pull in customers draped in diamonds and furs.
But even among the kinds of businesses that both rich and poor people frequent, there is little socioeconomic cross-pollination.
That’s largely because of residential segregation.
Over recent decades, rich and poor households have increasingly sorted into different areas; today, as consumers, they tend not to venture far from home. In the researchers’ data, 80 percent of customers’ visits to stores and other establishments were within 10 miles of home. Lower-income people in particular seem to strongly prefer staying nearby (why is unclear; limited transportation options might play a role, or lack of free time).
To give an example: CVS, the largest pharmacy chain in the country, serves customers across the income distribution. So, in aggregate, the company’s patrons look economically diverse. But there are so many CVS locations that consumers can easily shop only at the branch within their own neighborhoods — where they might encounter only people who look like themselves.
Similarly, the U.S. Postal Service serves everyone. But when you buy stamps, you probably don’t often venture beyond your nearest post office. So, you end up bumping into even more people who look demographically similar to yourself.
Indeed, many public institutions we might associate with facilitating encounters across class lines instead reinforce seclusion. Parks, schools, libraries, churches, fitness and recreation centers: There are exceptions, but on average, each of these establishments leads to less socioeconomic mixing, more within-income-group hobnobbing and even more class isolation.
Full-service, affordable restaurant chains, however, are a notable outlier.
Everyone, rich and poor, seems to like predictable, mass-produced, moderate-price-point nachos. Locations of these franchises are also not so ubiquitous that each intersection has its own (despite what the Applebee’s “neighborhood” branding might suggest). So loyal customers make the trek — and share their dinners alongside Americans across the income spectrum.
In an interview, the authors acknowledge that they can’t tell how often, say, Outback Steakhouse customers are actually interacting with one another, vs. sitting back-to-back, isolated in their own vinyl booths. Certainly some of the other sectors that rank highly in the study’s measure of socioeconomic mixing, such as gas stations, seem unlikely to foster new friendships.
But it’s striking nonetheless that Chili’s, and not church or the local playground, is where Americans today are most likely to cross paths with someone of a different income class.
Viewed one way, this is a failure of civil society: Public institutions have been woefully unsuccessful, in some cases counterproductive, in knitting together different socioeconomic strata. Of course, the kinds of policy changes that might encourage more inter-class elbow-rubbing generally face fierce political opposition (busing, for instance, or relaxing zoning rules). Some might also compromise other valuable services public institutions provide. Having more local libraries is good for promoting access, even if closing and consolidating a few could theoretically promote more class mixing.
So perhaps a more cheerful way to interpret these trends is that they represent an unsung achievement of capitalism. The invisible hand has given Americans not only economic growth but social cohesion via curly fries, too.
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