Measuring Neighborhood Investments: An Examination of Community Choice

Community choice is a very important household decision, since it represents an investment in community attributes that can have a significant effect on the quality of life of all household members, particularly by influencing the future prospects of children. In this paper, we examine the housing and community choices of migrants to and within Los Angeles County identified in the 1990 5% public-use sample of the Census. Controlling for income, we find that expenditures on housing structure are quite similar across races. However, controlling for income, black and Hispanic households consume significantly less in community attributes than white households.