The Spatial Characteristics of Homogeneity: Individual Exposure to Agreement and Geography.

Political jurisdictions (cities) in metropolitan areas work to reinforce existing patterns of segregation in residential areas, which means that, on average, citizens live in homogeneous places. This homogeneity is multi-dimensional, and can include class, race, partisanship and other measures. Whether or not this homogeneity at the jurisdictional level influences with whom individuals interact is the focus of this paper. The questions I attempt to answer are: Is there a spatial component to homogeneity in a person's political network? Can the existence of homogeneity (defined as agreement) in a person's network be explained by the homogeneity of the place? I utilize the 1996 Indianapolis-St Louis dataset, collected by Huckfeldt and Sprague (2000), and find that, on three measures of homogeneity, only partisan homogeneity - associating with people who support the same party - has a spatial pattern. For the other measures, demographic homogeneity and political agreement, there is no spatial component. This suggests that although individuals may live in homogeneous, segregated cities they do not necessarily isolate themselves with like-minded people of similar demographic backgrounds. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]