Middle-class flight from urban public schools to suburban districts or private schools is a key source of educational inequality. Recently, however, a number of studies have focused on middle-class and upper-middle-class families who have made a different choice, opting to remain in the city and send their children to neighborhood public schools. While the movement of advantaged families into urban public schools has received positive attention in the media, this growing body of research tells a more complicated story. Middle-class families -with their economic, cultural, and social capital -can bring important resources to schools, resulting in widespread benefits. However, their engagement in urban public schools can also lead to marginalization and exclusion. We review the emergent literature on this topic, highlighting four themes: (i) parent preferences, identities, and values; (ii) the role of marketing campaigns and informal networks in attracting the middle class; (iii) the nature and consequences of middle-class parent engagement in urban schooling; and (iv) the relationship between neighborhood change and school change. We conclude by outlining a research agenda aimed at deepening our understanding of the mechanisms by which middle-class parent engagement in urban schooling may serve to mitigate, reproduce, or exacerbate educational inequalities.Sociological scholarship on urban education frequently focuses on the inequities experienced by low-income students in large city school districts. Recently, however, a growing body of American and European literature has called attention to the decisions of middle-class and upper-middle-class parents, 1 particularly Whites, to consider and/or enroll their children in socioeconomically mixed or predominantly low-income urban public schools (Billingham and

Dominant approaches to the study of gentrification tend to attribute this process either to the production of urban space by elites or to the consumption of urban space by individual consumers. In this article, we take a preliminary step toward bridging this gap by illustrating how these groups may, in some cases, be the same actors. Drawing on in-depth interviews with middle-class parents in Boston, we explore the transitions that gentrifiers undergo as they age and have children. As young singles and childless couples, our respondents interacted with the city mainly as passive consumers. Years later, however, facing pressures to relocate in search of high-quality educational options, these parents emerged as active producers of the urban landscape through their substantial involvement in their children's public elementary schools. This school-based engagement reinforced their loyalties to their neighborhoods, dissuading them from moving to the suburbs. Since it is based on intense interactions with small local institutions, though, this strategy will likely be more difficult for parents to sustain in larger, less personal high schools. Thus, these parents may reconsider their dedication to city living as their children age. We discuss the implications of this research for urban theory and policy.

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White flight from urban public schools has been well documented, but little attention has been paid to middle-class reinvestment in urban schools. This article combines findings from interviews with middle-class parents of Boston Public School students with demographic data from the city's public elementary schools to examine the motivations of these parents and assess the potential ramifications of their decisions. While providing their children with a diverse school environment is a major consideration for these families, the process by which they select schools may, in the aggregate, contribute to an increase in racial segregation across the district as a whole.

This study examines two important issues concerning the evaluation of business location factors. First, in contrast to many analyses that seek to determine the influence of a single factor or set of factors on site selection, this study aims to measure the relative importance of a wide range of factors. Second, it investigates the extent to which the perceived importance of a given location factor varies based on the type of facility in question. While there is a substantial amount of research devoted to identifying industry‐specific location factors, little is known about the influence that facility type has on the assessment of location criteria. Drawing on original survey data collected from real estate professionals in the U.S., we found significant differences in the mean ratings for more than half of the 39 location factors on the basis of facility type. In particular, “corporate/office” respondents were significantly more likely than “manufacturing” or “retail” respondents to assign higher ratings to “quality‐of‐life” location factors, such as crime rates, amenities, housing, and schools. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research on location theory.