The majority of initial hits on Google returns for “Schelling’s Segregation Model” link to websites containing applets allowing you to watch the model at work. Not only is this tool entertaining to play with but it also offers insight into deeper cultural questions. In particular, three professors from UCLA, Sander, Schreiber, and Doherty, were interested in using Schelling’s model to explain the evolution of housing segregation from the 1970s to now. From a historical context, the beginning of the 1970s marked a change in the housing market. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was passed banning bias in the housing market and many people increased their tolerance levels. Despite these changes, however, the amount of segregation dropped slightly and remained high overall. To better understand this result, the UCLA professors modified Schelling’s to account for a few other variables determining whether or not someone would be willing to make a move. These additional factors included housing cost, distance from existing home, racial composition of neighbors, and racial composition of community. Each of these parameters were weighted and attempted to mirror the statistics present in 1970. After the model was run, they found the result to be similar to what occurred in history. They found that the housing cost actually had little to do with this result and the neighborhood identity threshold level governs the city’s ability to become desegregated. This result is not too surprising, but it explores the use of multiple parameters to learn from Schelling’s Segregation Model. This model could even be adapted to model Cornell University’s Program House system. The system itself allows students to choose to live in a residence hall promoting either a specific cultures. The houses, Ujamaa (African American themed), Akwe:kon (Native American themed), and the Latino Living Center, are the ones subject to the most debate on campus. While they exist to promote and create interest in each of the different backgrounds, the large majority of the students living in these units share the same ethnicity as the theme of the house. Despite Cornell’s efforts to admit a diverse applicant pool and to offer opportunities to learn about other cultures, the program houses have become pockets of segregation. As we have learned from Schelling’s model, Cornellians’s high threshold value may be the contributing factor to this result or as the professors at UCLA highlighted, other reasons could exist. In fact, the model can be re-adjusted to account for Cornell’s Program House situation. Perhaps this would lead to new findings and new solutions. After all, may be Cornell needs a new strategy to force our diverse student body to interact with each other and overcome the conditions that promote segregation.

To read the paper written by Sander, Schreiber, and Doherty of UCLA, follow this link:

http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ308/tesfatsion/Schelling.Empirical.pdf