The debate over the role of the forces that create the patterns of residential separation has identified neighborhood preferences as one of the explanatory variables, but although we possess some empirical data on the nature of neighborhood racial preferences, the theoretical contributions have received only limited empirical evaluation. Among the theoretical statements, Schelling's model of the effects of small differences in preferences on residential patterns has provided a basic building block in our understanding of preferences, choices, and patterns. Several recent surveys of residential preferences provide the data with which to evaluate the underpinnings of the Schelling model. The preference/tolerance schedules that are derived from the data have a different functional form from that suggested by Schelling, but confirm the view that stable integrated equilibria are unlikely.

A study of the expressed preferences of four different ethnic groups in the Los Angeles metropolitan area shows strong desires for own-race combinations in the ethnicity of neighborhoods that individuals say they would choose when seeking a new residence. The results also show that Anglos are not the only group to practice "avoidance" of other racial/ethnic neighborhoods, although avoidance behavior by Anglos is the strongest. Because the issues of racial composition are socially sensitive, additional tests examined the relationship of preferences to behavior. Although many behaviors generally follow expressed preferences, members of households who expressed "no preference" also were found to largely choose own race neighborhoods. The results of this study suggest that the expressed preference for own race/own ethnicity, in combination with short-distance local moves, is likely to maintain present patterns of separation in U.S. metropolitan areas.

There is a substantial research literature on residential mobility in general, and the role of housing space in triggering moves in particular. The authors extend that research to mobility in British housing markets, using data from the British Household Panel Survey. They confirm the applicability of the general residential mobility model and also confirm the value both of pooled cross-sectional and of true longitudinal models of residential change. Age, tenure, and room stress (housing-space requirements) are found to be significant predictors of moving. In addition, the life course ‘triggers' of marital-status change and, in some situations, birth of a child play important roles in moving within housing markets in the United Kingdom. The same model, with somewhat lower levels of fit, is also significant for the London region. Variables that measure the desire to move and neighborhood satisfaction also play a role in predicting local moves: those who like their neighborhood are generally less likely to move. The results offer support for the view that residential mobility is a demographically driven process which also reflects the connection with neighborhood contexts.

Summary. Using a 1996 national survey of housing in China and a multilevel modelling technique, we examine housing tenure choice in transitional urban China where households have been granted limited freedom of choice in the housing market since the housing reforms of 1988. We nd that both market mechanisms and institutional forces affect households' tenure choice in urban China. While some socioeconomic factors such as age, household size, household income and housing price have similar effects on tenure choice as in the West, others such as the number of workers and marital status have rather different effects. In addition, factors characterising institutional relationships among the state, work units and households, such as hukou, job rank and work unit rank, still play important roles in tenure choice.Since the 1980s, most socialist economies have been in a process of transition and studies of transitional economies have become major topics in economics, geography, sociology and political science. Compared with the 'shock therapy' in eastern European countries and the USSR, the transition in China has been gradual and evolutionary (McMillan and Naughton, 1996). As part of the transition to a market economy, housing reform in urban China was launched nationwide in 1988. It aims to introduce market mechanisms to a heavily subsidised housing system and to transform housing from a welfare good to a commodity. To ensure a smooth transition, a dual system with 'new policies for the new housing stock, old methods for the old housing stock' (xin fang xin zhi du, lao fang lao bai fa) has been central to housing policies (State Council, 1998). While a housing market is emerging, the socialist forces in the housing system-such as the housing subsidies by work units-persist. It is this side-by-side combination of market mechanisms and institutional forces that creates the transitional nature of China's current housing system and sets a unique context within which households make tenure choices.Urban households in China, who had few housing choices but to wait for subsidised rental housing (also 'public housing', gong fang) in the socialist era, now have choices regarding both housing type and

A recent article [Vinkovic D, Kirman A (2006) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103: [19261][19262][19263][19264][19265] showing that the Schelling model has a physical analogue extends our understanding of the model. However, prior research has already outlined a mathematical basis for the Schelling model and simulations based on it have already enhanced our understanding of the social dynamics that underlie the model, something that the physical analogue does not address. Research in social science has provided a formal basis for the segregative outcomes resulting from the residential selection process and simulations have replicated relevant spatial outcomes under different specifications of the residential dynamics. New and increasingly detailed survey data on preferences demonstrates the embeddedness of the Schelling selection process in the social behaviors of choosing alternative residential compositions. It also demonstrates that, in the multicultural context, seemingly mild preferences for living with similar neighbors carry the potential to be strong determinants for own race selectivity and residential segregation.preferences ͉ simulation ͉ ethnicity ͉ integration ͉ neighborhoods A recent article outlined a model that can explain the way in which separation or segregation (clustering) can arise in physical processes and is thus a parallel to the clustering outcomes of the Schelling segregation model (1). The physical analogue is interesting and it is intriguing to learn that there are physical parallels to social processes with specific commonalities in the physical processes of clustering and the social process of residential separation and segregation. That said, it is not completely clear that we have advanced our understanding of segregation and segregation dynamics by generating a physical analogue to the Schelling model. Although the physical analogue explains clustering and separating, the most important issue in the Schelling model, from a social perspective, is how choices play out in the social fabric and lead to segregated residential patterns. We show here that there are well articulated mathematical explanations for social segregation, that simulation studies with relatively simple utility structures can replicate complex and sometimes subtle segregation patterns seen in real urban environments, and that data from surveys of preferences reiterate the role of social distance in segregation outcomes.The original Schelling agent model was disarmingly simple in its construction (2, 3). It posited that an agent, a model representation of a household that could be white or black, preferred to be on a square on a checkerboard in which half or more of the eight adjacent neighbors were of a similar color. In the economic context, this was seen as having utility one compared with having utility zero. Schelling used simple simulations based on such hypothetical preference schedules to show that the adjustments of individual households responding to changes in composition on the checkerboard invariably lead to ...