How ethnicity influences residential distributions: an agent-based simulation

This paper deals with the influence of the organization of an agent’s ethnic identities on ethnic residential patterns by extending the Schelling model to include a further hierarchical level; that is, the agents’ ethnic identities are organized in a two-level hierarchy (each agent belongs to an ethnic group and subgroup). Agent-based simulation reveals that the residential pattern created at given levels of ethnic residential distribution can also be a response to intolerance behaviour at another level. The simulation experiments also show that these patterns can qualitatively change in response to different intensities of intolerance at both and/or either level. However, as a result of the asymmetric nesting of agents’ ethnic identities and the tangible residential patterns subsequently established, top-down and bottom-up influences are generally displayed in the following form; intolerance behaviour at the top level strengthens the segregation observed at the bottom level whereas intolerance behaviour at the bottom level tends to weaken the segregation observed at the top level. This means that intolerance-motivated segregation between a minority and a majority in a city tends to strengthen segregation between ethnic subgroups within an ethnic minority community. Conversely, mutual intolerance between ethnic subgroups within an ethnic minority tends to moderate residential segregation between that minority community and the majority population. I suggest that these conclusions can be used empirically to evaluate the consequences of individual preferences for the ethnic composition characterizing residential patterns.