An Econometric Model of the Urban Opportunity Structure Cumulative Causation Among City Markets, Social Problems, and Underserved Areas

Using an extensive database for the nation's 100 largest cities, this report examines the relationships among the housing, mortgage, and labor markets; the local public sector; household location patterns; and crime, dropping out of school, and out-of-wedlock childbearing. In addition to its comprehensiveness, this is also the first work to examine how underserved areas, as defined by HUD, interact with the various components of the opportunity structure. Includes 3 appendices: a glossary of variables; estimation of housing price indexes; and reduced form estimates (standardized coefficients).