Income inequality and the imprint of globalization on U.S. metropolitan areas—Boschken 2021

Metropolitan inequality is partly framed by a paradoxical triangle of competing constituency motives over resource allocation. Ecological sustainability and socioeconomic equity are "subordinate" to urban economic development. Understanding inequality in this context highlights the extraordinary intensity of economic development motives in maintaining global cities' centrality, connectivity, and command over globalization. This paper compares 53 large U.S. metropolitan areas to examine economic development in a global city that may explain income inequality. It uses empirical path analysis to trace the paradoxical triangle in a global city's struggle for global eminence. It examines heightened income inequality as a function of (a) the global city's assemblage of strategic "cornerstone" resources to sustain global advantage and (b) the concomitant polarizing effect of such assemblage on metropolitan employment structure.

Boschken, H. L. (2022). Income inequality and the imprint of Globalization on U.S. metropolitan areas. Cities, 121, 103503. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103503