We’re on Vox

This was originally written on 19 February 2019.

I just found out that Alvin Chang over at Vox has put together a really crackerjack article on how much higher residential segregation is in America than employment segregation, and on how employment segregation has gotten worse over the last generation. I'm biased, because he cites Rem Koning's and my ASR article from last year, but still.

What I find really impressive is that Alvin didn't get in touch with us before the video and article ran (we're the support group here, alongside Hall, Iceland, and Yi's recent Population Research and Policy Review article [gated]), but he nailed the interpretation of our findings. I thought I wrote the article as clearly as possible, but I've had trouble explaining its main import to reporters in the past.

It's also really neat to see our explanation of different forms of segregation show up almost unchanged in the video. Here's the first figure from our paper:

And here's the key shot at 4:59 in the video on YouTube:

The last thing that should be noted here is that, when they showed the paper in the video, they used the preprint version that Rem and I posted on SocArXiv before the article was accepted. The ease with which you can find it, versus the hoops I just jumped through to find the (gated) copy of Hall et al.'s article, is a pleasant little testament to the value of open access and preprint servers.

All in all, a good day. As long as you don't read the comments on the YouTube video, of course...