Research
A complete list is available on my CV and Google Scholar profile.
Physical Barriers & the Experience of Segregation
Barriers and Boundaries: How Residents Make Meaning of Segregating Built Environments
Sociological Perspectives 67(4-6): 261–288 (2024).
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Houston, we examine how residents interpret and experience the physical barriers and symbolic boundaries that divide areas distinct by race and income. The same barrier can be unremarkable to residents on one side and intrusive or hyper-salient to those on the other.
The Spatial Structure and Local Experience of Residential Segregation
Spatial Demography 9: 277–307 (2021).
We pair segregation measures that account for road connectivity with ethnographic observation in three Houston neighborhoods. Physical barriers — highways, railroad tracks, bayous — are associated with heightened ethnoracial segregation, and residents experience them as both impediments to social connection and symbolic markers of group distinction.
The Spatial Proximity and Connectivity Method for Measuring and Analyzing Residential Segregation
Sociological Methodology 48(1): 182–224 (2018).
Recognition2018 Sociological Methodology Featured Article
I introduce a method for measuring segregation that accounts for how the built environment — road connectivity and the physical barriers between locations — shapes proximity between groups. An application to Pittsburgh demonstrates the impact of physical barriers on the level and spatial pattern of racial segregation.
Working Papers
Barriers to Integration: Physical Barriers and the Spatial Structure of Racial Residential Segregation
Working paper.
We argue that physical barriers — fences, highways, dead-end streets — are a missing piece in explanations of segregation’s persistence. Across 20 Rustbelt cities, barriers are associated with higher levels of segregation, with telling variation across cities, geographic scales, and ethnoracial groups.
Functional Clustering for the Social Science Toolkit
Working paper.
We bring functional clustering — widely used in biostatistics but rare in the social sciences — to the study of phenomena that vary continuously over time, age, or distance. Our application classifies segregation-by-distance curves for 25 cities into distinct macro- and micro-scale typologies.
Segregation, Integration & Neighborhood Change
Integrating or Segregating? Gentrification, the Changing City-Suburb Divide, and Black Exceptionalism
Social Forces (forthcoming).
We examine how the spread of gentrification relates to changes in segregation by race and class across U.S. metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2019. Gentrification in central cities is associated with declining segregation between some groups, but with new segregation in the suburbs and a reinforced Black–White divide.
Identities (2025).
Drawing on interviews in two Swedish cities, we examine how immigrant and native-born residents talk about stigmatized immigrant neighborhoods — and whether their words match their actions. Many destigmatize these neighborhoods in talk while avoiding them in practice, underscoring the need to address material inequality between neighborhoods.
Structured Encounters and Immigrant Experiences of Integration in Sweden
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 51(3): 737–758 (2025).
We center immigrants’ own perceptions of the integration process in Sweden, examining how organizations and the built environment structure their encounters with others. Planned organizational activities and the spaces of everyday life both shape immigrants’ access to social connection and experiences of integration.
Residential Segregation in the Twenty-First Century and the Role of Housing Policy
In How Public Policy Impacts Racial Inequality, edited by Josh Grimm and Jaime Loke. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press (2019).
Fifty years after the Fair Housing Act, we take stock of racial and income segregation in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas — decomposing segregation between and within cities and suburbs — and assess the role of housing policy in its persistence and remediation.
Working Papers
The Divergence Index: A Decomposable Measure of Segregation and Inequality
Working paper (2024).
I introduce the Divergence Index, a measure of segregation that can be decomposed across scales — revealing, for example, how much of a metropolitan area’s segregation lies between its cities and suburbs versus within them. Analyzing U.S. metros from 1990 to 2010, I show why segregation and diversity are distinct concepts that require distinct measures.
Urban Policy & Mobility
Commuting to Opportunity: The Working Poor and Commuting in the United States
Report, The Brookings Institution (2008).
I document the disproportionate cost burden of commuting for the working poor, who spend 6.1 percent of household income on commuting compared with 3.8 percent for other workers. Combined with housing, these costs consume up to a third of working-poor households’ budgets.
Report, U.S. Government Accountability Office (2004).
This GAO report assesses how well federal programs meet the mobility needs of transportation-disadvantaged seniors — those who cannot drive or must limit their driving — and identifies program practices that enhance mobility, obstacles to meeting seniors’ needs, and strategies for overcoming them.
Dissertation
The Boundaries of Spatial Inequality: Three Essays on the Measurement and Analysis of Residential Segregation
Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University (2015).
RecognitionMarvin B. Sussman Dissertation Prize, 2017
Social & Spatial Division in Road Networks
Counterfactual Road Networks: A Method for Examining Social and Spatial Division in Road Networks
Elizabeth Roberto, Yu Zhu, Santiago Segarra, and Jaleh Jalili.
Sociological Methodology 56(1): 62–95 (2026).
RecognitionHonorable Mention, Jane Addams Article Award (2026), American Sociological Association Section on Community and Urban Sociology
We introduce a method that identifies road segments that we would expect to exist given the surrounding infrastructure but that are nonetheless missing. In a demonstration with five U.S. cities, unexpected disconnectivity is associated with greater differences in the racial composition of nearby areas and higher segregation at the local and city levels.
MediaMarketplace Morning Report with David Brancaccio, May 20, 2025
DOIPreprint
Generative Multimodal Models for Social Science: An Application with Satellite and Streetscape Imagery
Tina Law and Elizabeth Roberto.
Sociological Methods & Research 54(3): 889–932 (2025).
We introduce a framework of three core tasks — curation, discovery, and measurement and inference — for analyzing images with generative multimodal models, demonstrated with satellite and streetscape imagery of segregated U.S. cities. Given well-defined labels, the model classifies images with high validity relative to expert coding.
DOISupplementary MaterialReplication Materials